Our objective is to study the physiology of intraarterial infusions in the carotid artery. A major problem with intracarotid infusions in patients with gliomas is focal injury to the eye and brain. Our hypothesis is that these problems are due to poor mixing of the infusate with blood such that certain eye and brain areas receive toxic amounts of drug that result in infarction of tissue. Other areas may receive suboptimal drug delivery resulting in treatment failure. We demonstrated that in animal models, and are now studying patients. We hope to eliminate this poor mixing with a specifically engineered infusion pump which injects in a pulsatile manner during the slow blood flow phase of diastole.
