Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Pulmonary metastases occur in approximately 30% of patients dying of cancer. The relatively poor results of surgicalresection of pulmonary metastases combined with intravenous systemic chemotherapy are probably due to drug resistanceand the inability to achieve effective drug concentrations within the lung. The proposed research aim to use method called invivo isolated lung perfusion (IVLP), which has the theoretical advantage of both selectively delivering an agent and divertingthe venous effluent. This allows a drug to be delivered in a higher dose, while drug levels in critical organs that are relativelysensitive to the drug, are kept low enough to avoid severe side effects. In order to optimize delivery of anticancer agent tothe isolated lungs, to monitor concentration of the drug and its distribution in the organ and finally to assess the effect of thedrug on the lungs the reliable analytical approach permitting rapid analysis and minimum invasiveness is required. For thispurpose we propose to use novel method called solid phase microextraction (SPME), the technology which utilizesmicroprobe coated with biocompatible polymer to be inserted directly into the tissue and extract small molecules with nonecessity of collection biopsy sample. It is postulated that due to the properties of the coating we can observe not only drugconcentration but also fast changes in metabolic profile of the organ as a response to the used chemotherapy in onesampling. We also propose to develop a strategy of coupling SPME with one of the mass spectrometry techniques enablingdetection of analytes in real time. This combination could be used as rapid intraoperative tool for monitoring ofdrug level and therapy progress.