Abstract
Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), aiming to block the hepatic artery for inhibiting tumor blood supply, became a popular therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Traditional TACE formulation of anticancer drug emulsion in ethiodized oil (i.e., Lipiodol®) and gelatin sponge (i.e., Gelfoam®) had drawbacks on patient tolerance and resulted in undesired systemic toxicity, which were both significantly improved by polymeric beads, microparticles, or hydrogels by taking advantage of the elegant design of biocompatible or biodegradable polymers, especially amphiphilic polymers or polymers with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic chains, which could self-assemble into proposed microspheres or hydrogels. In this review, we aimed to summarize recent advances on polymeric embolization beads or hydrogels as TACE agents, with emphasis on their material basis of polymer architectures, which are important but have not yet been comprehensively summarized.
Highlights
Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), which aimed to block the hepatic artery to inhibit the blood supply of solid tumor and to achieve localized chemotherapy, has been popularly applied for liver cancer patients who were at a middle or late stage and were not suitable for surgical resection (Schwartz and Weintraub, 2008; Hyun et al, 2018)
The results showed that patients with drug-eluting beads (DEB)-TAC treatments could obviously receive a high dose of DOX without considering the undesired systematic circulation of injected drugs in comparison with conventional TACE formulation
TACE agents, which could be further combined with a wide spectrum of chemotherapeutics or X-ray contrast agents to show improved performance compared to traditional Lipiodol R or Gelfoam R formulation
Summary
Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), which aimed to block the hepatic artery to inhibit the blood supply of solid tumor and to achieve localized chemotherapy, has been popularly applied for liver cancer patients who were at a middle or late stage and were not suitable for surgical resection (Schwartz and Weintraub, 2008; Hyun et al, 2018). Ideal embolization reagents should be able to (1) quickly and effectively block the blood supply upon intra-arterial injection; (2) release the embedded anticancer drugs for localized chemotherapy; (3) degrade after treatment for preventing thrombus; (4) potentially impair the angiogenesis. We aim to summarize the current design of new generation embolization beads or hydrogels as illustrated in Figure 1, with emphasis on their material basis of polymer architectures, which are important but have not yet been comprehensively reviewed
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