Announcement Regarding the Safety Review of Toyama Medical's Brain Cancer Drug
Recently, we noticed questions online regarding the safety review of Toyama Medical's Brain Cancer Drug. We hereby clarify the situation.
Animal experiments are currently underway. After being administered Toyama Medical's Brain Cancer Drug at the prescribed dosage, not all of the tumor cancer cells were eliminated. Large numbers of scattered cancer cells entered the body's circulation through the animals' bloodstreams.
Of the 275 groups of animal experiments currently underway, five groups of animals have already shown an abnormal rise in blood cancer cells after their tumors disappeared.
The hematogenous spread of malignant tumors is the most common form of metastasis. It usually occurs in three steps. First, the tumor invades the blood vessels, with malignant tumor cells entering the vessels actively or passively and surviving. Next comes the CTC process, in which tumor cells separate from the blood vessels and enter the bloodstream, forming circulating tumor cells in the body. Finally, they reach distant organs, implant themselves, and grow, producing metastatic tumor lesions.
During the animal experiments, although the number of cancer cells in the blood was relatively small, it never decreased. This might have resulted from one of two situations. Either the animals' immune functions had severely declined, or their immune functions were normal but the detached tumor cells had formed large clusters, far exceeding the number the immune system could eliminate.
Regardless of which situation applies, large numbers of metastatic lesions could easily develop. In other words, although the brain tumors would disappear, new tumors could erupt densely throughout the body's organs. Their number could range from single digits to three or even four digits.
Once this happened, it would be extremely dangerous for patients. Brain cancer alone could still be cured or controlled to extend life