REVIEW ARTICLE

Ultrasound-mediated targeted microbubbles: a new vehicle for cancer therapy

  • Junxiao YE 1 ,
  • Huining HE , 1,4,5 ,
  • Junbo GONG 1 ,
  • Weibing DONG 1 ,
  • Yongzhuo HUANG 2,3 ,
  • Jianxin WANG 3 ,
  • Guanyi CHEN 4 ,
  • Victor C YANG , 5,6
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  • 1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
  • 2. Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
  • 3. Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University; Key Laboratory of Smart Drug Delivery, Ministry of Education & PLA, Shanghai 201203, China
  • 4. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
  • 5. Tianjin Key Laboratory on Technologies Enabling Development of Clinical Therapeutics and Diagnostics, School of Pharmacy, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300070, China
  • 6. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1065, USA

Received date: 02 Dec 2012

Accepted date: 30 Dec 2012

Published date: 05 Mar 2013

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

With the hope of overcoming the serious side effects, great endeavor has been made in tumor-targeted chemotherapy, and various drug delivery modalities and drug carriers have been made to decrease systemic toxicity caused by chemotherapeutic agents. Scientists from home and abroad focus on the research of targeted microbubbles contrast agent, and the use of the targeted ultrasound microbubble contrast agent can carry gene drugs and so on to the target tissue, as well as mediated tumor cell apoptosis and tumor microvascular thrombosis block, etc., thus plays the role of targeted therapy. Recent studies have elucidated the mechanisms of drug release and absorption, however, much work remains to be done in order to develop a successful and optimal system. In this review, we summarized the continuing efforts in understanding the usage of the ultrasound triggered target microbubbles in cancer therapy, from release mechanism to preparation methods. The latest applications of ultrasound-triggered targeted microbubbles in cancer therapy, especially in gene therapy and antiangiogenic cancer therapy were discussed. Moreover, we concluded that as a new technology, ultrasound–triggered targeted microbubbles used as drug carriers and imaging agents are still energetic and are very likely to be translated into clinic in the near future.

Cite this article

Junxiao YE , Huining HE , Junbo GONG , Weibing DONG , Yongzhuo HUANG , Jianxin WANG , Guanyi CHEN , Victor C YANG . Ultrasound-mediated targeted microbubbles: a new vehicle for cancer therapy[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2013 , 7(1) : 20 -28 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-013-1311-z

Acknowledgments

This work was sponsored by Grant R31-2008-000-10103-01 from the World Class University (WCU) project of South Korea. Victor C. Yang is currently a participating faculty member in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences, Seoul National University, South Korea. It was also partially supported by National Key Basic Research Program of China (2013CB932502), School of Pharmacy, Fudan University & The Open Project Program of Key Laboratory of Smart Drug Delivery (Fudan University), MOE & PLA, China (SDD2011-02).
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