Drug pumps approved

Press, 16 March 1982, Page 7

Drug pumps approved

by

NZPA Washington The first drug pump that can be implanted inside the body has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. The administration says the device could add more than two years to the life expectancy of liver cancer patients and prevent blood clots in victims of phlebitis and other ailments. It is studying the drug pump as a way to dispense drugs to treat brain tumors or insulin for diabetics. The pump holds promise as an improved treatment method for the 9400 people who might otherwise die of liver cancer each year, the 745,000 who suffer from phlebitis and the 50,000 whose deaths are linked with pulmonary embolisms, said an F.D.A. commissioner, Mr Arthur Hull Hayes. The drug pump can be inserted in the chest or stomach and is the first one which need not be wornoutside the body. It resembles a hockey puck in size and shape and provides continuous drug therapy. Dr William Ensminger, associate director of the University of Michigan’s clinical research centre, said that for liver cancer patients, the pump “enables us to extend life expectancy from about four to six months to beyond two years. “Pumps have been in use for as long as 40 months,” he said.

Dr Ensminger said experimental work with the pump revealed on 85 per cent remission rate for liver cancer patients. But he warned that the drug pump is of proven benefit only in cases where cancer is confined to the liver since it is most effective when the treatment is applied to a single tumor site.

Implantation of a drug pump will lessen the need for hospitalisation and, in the case of patients with clotting problems, the need for a painful and expensive regimen of injections. It can be

F.D.A.

refilled by a family physician using a hypodermic needle. LiVer cancer patients who were given drug pumps experienced fewer side effects than with other cancer treatments because the pump delivers the drug treatment direct to the cancer site without significant deposits in other parts of the body, the F.D.A. said, Those side effects include nausea, vomiting, and a lowered blood cell count. For patients with clotting problems like phlebitis and pulmonary embolisms, the drug pump, with few exceptions, helped free them of pain and enabled them to carry on active lives, according to the administration. About 92 per cent of the patients with previously untreatable clotting disorders had no recurrence of the disease during research tests.

About 110 of the 137 drug pumps used in the research were given to patients at the University of Michigan centre. Pumps were used experimentally for as long as 40 months. There were only five pump failures and none caused serious complications. The pump was invented by Dr Henry Buchwald, of the University of Minnesota, where much of the experimental work with clotting disorders was done.