Abstract
Implantation of drug eluting stents following percutaneous transluminal angioplasty has revealed a well established technique for treating occlusions caused by the atherosclerotic plaque. However, due to the risk of vascular re-occlusion, other alternative therapeutic strategies of drug delivery are currently being investigated. Polymeric endoluminal pave stenting is an emerging technology for preventing blood erosion and for optimizing drug release. The classical and novel methodologies are compared through a mathematical model able to predict the evolution of the drug concentration in a cross-section of the wall. Though limited to an idealized configuration, the present model is shown to catch most of the relevant aspects of the drug dynamics in a delivery system. Results of numerical simulations shows that a bi-layer gel paved stenting guarantees a uniform drug elution and a prolonged perfusion of the tissues, and remains a promising and effective technique in drug delivery.
Highlights
Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty has been used in the past to treat coronary occlusion due to atherosclerotic plaques
An inconvenience of these devices consists of the frequent induction of the exuberant proliferation of coronary smooth muscle cells (CSMCs), a phenomenon which determines the re-occlusion of the treated vessel [2, 3]
This problem has been substantially attenuated by the use of drug eluting stents (DES) which are able to deliver in situ antiproliferative drugs [4]
Summary
Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty has been used in the past to treat coronary occlusion (stenosis) due to atherosclerotic plaques. Nucleic acid based drug (NABD) showed to be very promising at this purpose as they can down regulate CSMC proliferation by suppressing the expression of relevant cell cycle promoting genes [9,10,11,12,13] For their fragile nature and for the fact cellular internalization requires their complexation with transfection agents such as liposomes [14], NABD cannot be released by traditional DES and alternative delivery systems are considered. While the first issue requires the theoretical estimation of the wall shear stress exerted by the blood stream, the second one implies a theoretical study on drug release kinetics from our in situ delivery system composed by a bi-layer gel This consists of an hard inner side directed towards blood flow, and of a soft outer side in contact with the arterial wall. They can be used to identify simple indexes or clinical indicators useful in drug delivery design and to optimize drug elution for a desired tissue concentration
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
