Abstract
Abstract An approach to improve chemotherapy, while minimizing side effects, is a local drug release close to the tumorous tissue. For this purpose, the active drug component is often bound to nanoparticles employed as drug carriers. In the present study, we investigate sonosensitive, biocompatible poly-(L)-lactic acid (PLA) nanoparticles, which shall be used as drug carriers. For drug release, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) will be employed to introduce inertial cavitation, which separates the active drug component from the drug carrier. The cavitation effect generates an acoustic noise signal, which characterizes the cavitation activity and is expected to serve simultaneously as an indicator for the release of the active drug component. Depending on the ultrasound frequency, different acoustic levels of the inertial cavitation activity were measured. Investigations using a setup for passive cavitation detection (PCD) deliver quantitative results regarding the frequency dependence of the cavitation activity level of nanoparticles and reference media.
Highlights
Several drug delivery systems have been investigated, which accumulate the drug close to the tumorous tissue. One of these methods is Magnetic Drug Targeting (MDT), whereby the active drug component is bound to drug carriers consisting of iron oxide nanoparticles
Local drug release is activated due to the sonosensitive behavior of the nanoparticles by the inertial cavitation effect, which is generated by a High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) field irradiating the tumorous area from outside the body
The duration of the drug release depends on the cavitation activity, which is controlled by the emitted ultrasound signal
Summary
Several drug delivery systems have been investigated, which accumulate the drug close to the tumorous tissue One of these methods is Magnetic Drug Targeting (MDT), whereby the active drug component is bound to drug carriers consisting of iron oxide nanoparticles. Local drug release is activated due to the sonosensitive behavior of the nanoparticles by the inertial cavitation effect, which is generated by a HIFU field irradiating the tumorous area from outside the body. The aim of this method is to keep the treatment time as short as possible and at the same time, to achieve a complete release of the active drug component. It is worth mentioning that ultrasound intensities above 3.5 W cm−2 are related to HIFU signals
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