Introduction: In recent years, the development of drug-eluting embolization beads that can be imaged has become a hot research topic in regard to meeting clinical needs. In our previous study, we successfully developed nano-assembled microspheres (NAMs) for multimodal imaging purposes. NAMs can not only be visualized under CT/MR/Raman imaging but can also load clinically required doses of doxorubicin. It is important to systematically compare the pharmacokinetics of NAMs with those of commercially available DC Beads and CalliSpheres to evaluate the clinical application potential of NAMs. Methods: In our study, we compared NAMs with two types of drug-eluting beads (DEBs) in terms of irinotecan, drug-loading capacity, release profiles, microsphere diameter variation, and morphological characteristics. Results: Our results indicate that NAMs had an irinotecan loading capacity similar to those of DC Beads and CalliSpheres but exhibited better sustained release in vitro. Conclusion: NAMs have great potential for application in transcatheter arterial chemoembolization for the treatment of colorectal cancer liver metastases.
Fan Leng,Sai Lei,Bin Luo,Siyao Lv,Long Huang,Xulin Jiang
As a minimally invasive method, endovascular embolization has been an effective strategy for controlling bleeding and tumor treatment. Herein, carboxymethyl chitin embolic microspheres were prepared with the aqueous two-phase carboxymethyl chitin/polyethylene glycol system without using any crosslinking agents and thrombin-functionalized embolic microsphere named as [email protected] was made after covalent introduction of thrombin. The size of the microspheres can be adjusted from 5 to 500 μm. The data of in vitro and in vivo tests indicated that these microspheres possessed good degradability and biocompatibility. Meanwhile, [email protected] can significantly promote blood clotting and enhance the strength of the blood clots . More importantly, [email protected] displayed better embolization effect than that of the commercial available Gelfoam Alicon® and polyvinyl alcohol-based embolic microspheres CalliSpheres® in rat femoral vein and rabbit ear artery embolization models. Therefore the size-tunable and biodegradable thrombin-functionalized carboxymethyl chitin microspheres [email protected] possess great potential for effective hemostasis and endovascular embolization.