The so-called microatomizer is intended for spraying highly concentrated cytostatics in the abdominal and thoracic cavities. The new technique will offer doctors an alternative to peritoneal lavage, which is currently the most effective treatment in the final stages of the disease. In peritoneal lavage, a solution containing a heated chemotherapeutic agent is applied to the patient's abdomen or chest cavity to effectively destroy tumours. However, this method is limited by the extent of the patient's disability.

"It is a new method of administering chemotherapy to the abdominal cavity or the thoracic cavity. The advantage is direct administration into the abdominal cavity and thus bypassing the barriers that reduce the penetration of chemotherapy in standard administration orally or intravenously," the primary Hoskovec explains. "In the case of peritoneal lavage, there are known cases in our territory where patients who have already been sent home for life expectancy survive at the age of 12, without recurrence. According to clinical forecasts, the procedure with the help of a new technique should affect hundreds to thousands of Czech patients a year, while the procedure is repeated by patients,” the developer Radim Skála from the SKALA-Medica company adds.

The company needed to clarify what the spraying of cytostatics using nozzles looks like: how droplets of a substance flow, how fast they are, and how they behave when they hit the tissue. And based on that, evaluate how the spray will behave in a very complex environment. The developers from Soběslav, therefore, approached experts from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Brno University of Technology with a request for assistance.

"We were in the final stage of development, when Mr. Hoskovec and I were dealing with the dilemma of which spray design variant to choose in order for the product to be as effective as possible for patients. Therefore, we turned to the most professional in the Czech Republic and the cooperation with BUT proved to be key in the project. They performed measurements that we were not able to perform in Soběslav and Prague,“ Skála says.

"Our Spray Research Laboratory is uniquely equipped for similar measurements, as the only one in the Czech Republic," Jan Jedelský, the head of the laboratory, who and his team assessed various development versions of the new nozzle for the company. "Using our optical systems, we can measure every drop of solution, its size, speed and flow direction with a laser. Using another measuring system, we then see what the spray looks like during spraying and during the impact and what happens to it next. In this case, for example, we have found that the droplets are of such a size and velocity that they adhere to the surface and do not bounce off. The speed of the drops was also important for the manufacturer, which, according to the assumption, could improve the penetration of the substance into the diseased tissue and thus increase the therapeutic effect,“ Jedelský specifies.