Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Chemotherapy is a key treatment for many cancers, but systemic distribution of chemotherapy into normal tissue risks dose-limiting toxicity. Addition of anti-vascular therapy that damages tumor blood vessels can improve outcomes over chemotherapy alone, but also further increases toxicity. Better targeting of chemotherapeutic and anti-vascular therapy remains a significant clinical challenge in cancer therapy. Non-invasive, therapeutic ultrasound has been previously used to cavitate ultrasound contrast agents (i.e., microbubbles) to potentiate chemotherapy by either increasing local tumour blood vessel permeability to allow co-injected drugs to diffuse preferentially into tumour tissue, and by causing local tumour vessel damage for mechanically-induced vascular disruption therapy which has shown to profoundly increase the efficacy of anticancer drugs. In this talk, the development of new acoustically-active agents (i.e., droplets and bubbles) that are capable of both carrying therapeutic concentrations of a chemotherapeutic drug and can be cavitated for drug release and vascular damage will be introduced. Agents that are entirely composed of FDA-approved components are preferred as they may permit expedited translation into clinical use. Tradeoffs between size, stability, drug-loading, and in vivo performance between droplets and bubbles will be overviewed. Challenges and opportunities identified through recent efforts towards achieving cancer therapy potentiation in small animal cancer models will also be discussed.

Potentiation of cancer therapies with drug-loaded bubbles and droplets: Challenges and opportunities

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.