Intrathecal chemotherapy with MX2 for treating glioma dissemination in vivo.

We examined whether the intrathecal MX2 chemotherapy for treating dissemination of malignant glioma would be a feasible therapy. In the toxicity study, physiological and histological neurotoxicity was not observed in the rats treated with less than 100 microg/kg of MX2 administered intracisternally. But physiological side effects were observed in the treatment group of more than 200 microg/kg and histological brain toxicity was in the treatment group of more than 1000 microg/kg. Dissemination models were induced in rats by intracisternal inoculation of C6 glioma cells. The median survival times of the rats treated with 100 microg/kg of intrathecal MX2 on day 1, 3, or 7 after tumor inoculation were prolonged by 52.4% (p = 0.0006), 31.5% (p = 0.0007), and 7.1% (p = 0.0180), respectively, compared to that of untreated control animals. Intrathecal MX2 treatment also cured 33.6% of rats in the treatment group. These findings suggested that there was a possibility that intrathecal MX2 would be a safe and effective method for treating dissemination of malignant glioma.