• Ultrasound-based therapies are opening new horizons in the oncological field.• Innovative and promising solutions derive from different nanoparticles-assisted ultrasound treatments.• Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) emerged recently as a novel approach for cancer treatment.• Different and complex cell death mechanisms are involved in nanoparticles-assisted SDT.• Nanoparticles-assisted ultrasound is still at its infancy in clinics. A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords:Inertial cavitation Reactive oxygen species Sonoluminescence Sonodynamic Tumor Therapy Cytotoxicity A B S T R A C TAt present, ultrasound radiation is broadly employed in medicine for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes at various frequencies and intensities. In this review article, we focus on therapeutically-active nanoparticles (NPs) when stimulated by ultrasound. We first introduce the different ultrasound-based therapies with special attention to the techniques involved in the oncological field, then we summarize the different NPs used, ranging from soft materials, like liposomes or micro/nano-bubbles, to metal and metal oxide NPs. We therefore focus on the sonodynamic therapy and on the possible working mechanisms under debate of NPs-assisted sonodynamic treatments. We support the idea that various, complex and synergistics physical-chemical processes take place during acoustic cavitation and NP activation. Different mechanisms are therefore responsible for the final cancer cell death and strongly depends not only on the type and structure of NPs or nanocarriers, but also on the way they interact with the ultrasonic pressure waves. We conclude with a brief overview of the clinical applications of the various ultrasound therapies and the related use of NPs-assisted ultrasound in clinics, showing that this very innovative and promising approach is however still at its infancy in the clinical cancer treatment.
The isolation and analysis of circulating biomarkers, the main concern of liquid biopsy, could greatly benefit from microfluidics. Microfluidics has indeed the huge potentiality to bring liquid biopsy into the clinical practice. Here, two polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microdevices are presented as valid tools for capturing microRNAs biomarkers from clinically-relevant samples. After an extensive study of functionalized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) properties in adsorbing/eluting microRNAs, the best conditions were transferred to the microdevices, which were thoroughly characterized. The channels morphology and chemical composition were measured, and parameters for the automation of measures were setup. The best working conditions were then used with microdevices, which were proven to capture microRNAs on all channel surfaces. Finally, microfluidic devices were successfully validated via real-time PCR for the detection of a pool of microRNAs related to non-small cell lung cancer, selected as proof-of-principle. The microfluidic approach described here will allow a step forward towards the realization of an efficient microdevice, possibly automated and integrated into a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip with high analytical potentialities.
This work illustrates focalization performances of a silicon-based bulk acoustic wave device applied for the separation of specimens owing to micrometric dimensions. Samples are separated in the microfluidic channel by the presence of an acoustic field, which focalizes particles or cells according to their mechanical properties compared to the surrounded medium ones. Design and fabrication processes are reported, followed by focalization performance tests conducted either with synthetic particles or cells. High focalization performances occurred at different microparticle concentrations. In addition, preliminary tests carried out with HL-60 cells highlighted an optimal separation performance at a high flow rate and when cells are mixed with micro and nanoparticles without affecting device focalization capabilities. These encouraging results showed how this bulk acoustic wave device could be exploited to develop a diagnostic tool for early diagnosis or some specific target therapies by separating different kinds of cells or biomarkers possessing different mechanical properties such as shapes, sizes and densities.
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