Making waves: how ultrasound-targeted drug delivery is changing pharmaceutical approaches

Abstract

Administration of drugs through oral and intravenous routes is a mainstay of modern medicine, but this approach suffers from limitations associated with off-target side effects and narrow therapeutic windows. It...

Exosomes and ultrasound: The future of theranostic applications

“…Phase changeable imaging works under the effect of cyclic acoustic waves application that changes the liquid phase of the contrast agents (perfluorocarbons) in to vapour phase and the process is termed as acoustic droplet vaporization. ADV has higher penetrating potential than optical droplet vaporization or NIR droplet vaporization [ 392 ]. Photoacoustic imaging involves the principle of thermal effect produced by photothermal transducing agent, which captures the light energy and converts it to thermal energy, which not only induced cancer cell death, but helps in accumulating and processing the data sets to obtain clinical information in the form of ultrasound images [ 393 ].…”

Recent Advances in Stimuli-Responsive Doxorubicin Delivery Systems for Liver Cancer Therapy

“…In general, release systems based on ultrasound waves are obtained from polymers, in different forms, such as polymer-coated bubbles/emulsions, and polymer hydrogels [ 216 , 217 , 218 , 219 , 220 ]. It was reported that ultrasonic-responsive drug delivery systems are able to increase drug delivery, but also increase the therapeutic efficacy, and temporal release of drugs [ 221 ]. The use of ultrasound waves can induce thermal effects, mechanical effects, or radiation force, which can lead to the release of the active substance in a non-invasive, remote, and spatiotemporally controlled manner [ 222 ].…”

PVA-Microbubbles as a Radioembolization Platform: Formulation and the In Vitro Proof of Concept

“…Due to their micrometric dimensions, MBs remain within the vascular system. For active targeting, MBs are designed to selectively adhere to cell epitopes and receptors overexpressed on the endothelium associated with pathologies [ 11 , 12 ]. Compelling evidence in vitro and in vivo for their usage in designing a safe and non-invasive approach for selective and ultrasound-assisted drug delivery has been shown [ 12 ].…”

“…For active targeting, MBs are designed to selectively adhere to cell epitopes and receptors overexpressed on the endothelium associated with pathologies [ 11 , 12 ]. Compelling evidence in vitro and in vivo for their usage in designing a safe and non-invasive approach for selective and ultrasound-assisted drug delivery has been shown [ 12 ]. The MBs’ stimuli by ultrasound can indeed create echographic input information, together with a reversible opening on cell membranes and vessel walls (i.e., sonoporation), allowing a better transport of therapeutic agents through these natural barriers [ 11 ].…”