Skin flaps deliver cancer-fighting therapy, ASPS study reveals

Using gene therapy, plastic surgeons have delivered cancer fighting proteins through skin flaps placed on cancerous tumors on rats with a 79 percent reduction in tumor volume, according to a study in the May issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). This new delivery technique, which has yet to be tested in humans, did not cause toxicity in the body of rats; however, administering the same anti-tumor agent intravenously in humans has previously been shown to cause liver damage.