Journal article
Acoustically active liposome-nanobubble complexes for enhanced ultrasonic imaging and ultrasound-triggered drug delivery
Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology, v 6(3), pp 316-325
May 2014
PMID: 24459007
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Ultrasound is well known as a safe, reliable imaging modality. A historical limitation of ultrasound, however, was its inability to resolve structures at length scales less than nominally 20 µm, which meant that classical ultrasound could not be used in applications such as echocardiography and angiogenesis where one requires the ability to image small blood vessels. The advent of ultrasound contrast agents, or microbubbles, removed this limitation and ushered in a new wave of enhanced ultrasound applications. In recent years, the microbubbles have been designed to achieve yet another application, namely ultrasound-triggered drug delivery. Ultrasound contrast agents are thus tantamount to 'theranostic' vehicles, meaning they can do both therapy (drug delivery) and imaging (diagnostics). The use of ultrasound contrast agents as drug delivery vehicles, however, is perhaps less than ideal when compared to traditional drug delivery vehicles (e.g., polymeric microcapsules and liposomes) which have greater drug carrying capacities. The drawback of the traditional drug delivery vehicles is that they are not naturally acoustically active and cannot be used for imaging. The notion of a theranostic vehicle is sufficiently intriguing that many attempts have been made in recent years to achieve a vehicle that combines the echogenicity of microbubbles with the drug carrying capacity of liposomes. The attempts can be classified into three categories, namely entrapping, tethering, and nesting. Of these, nesting is the newest-and perhaps the most promising.
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Details
- Title
- Acoustically active liposome-nanobubble complexes for enhanced ultrasonic imaging and ultrasound-triggered drug delivery
- Creators
- An T Nguyen - School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USASteven P Wrenn
- Publication Details
- Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology, v 6(3), pp 316-325
- Publisher
- Wiley; United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Chemical and Biological Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000334381500007
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84898544119
- Other Identifier
- 991014878239604721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Medicine, Research & Experimental
- Nanoscience & Nanotechnology