Background
HIFU has been shown to be a more suitable alternative for the treatment of primary solid tumors and metastatic diseases than other focal heat ablation techniques due to its noninvasive and extracorporeal nature. However, similar to other focal heat ablation techniques, HIFU is still in need of refinements due to tumor recurrence.
Conclusions
From these results, we concluded that the intralesional injection of DOX-loaded PLGA after HIFU ablation is significantly more effective than HIFU alone for the treatment of solid tumors.
Methods
In this work, we investigated the effectiveness of an adjunct treatment regimen using doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded, injectable, in situ-forming, and phase-inverting PLGA as the second line of defense after HIFU ablation to destroy detrimental residual tumors and to prevent tumor recurrence. All of the statistical analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 18.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA), and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. All of the
Results
Our results revealed that DOX diffused beyond the ablated tissue regions and entered tumor cells that were not affected by the HIFU ablation. Our results also show that HIFU in concert with DOX-loaded PLGA led to a significantly higher rate of tumor cell apoptosis and a lower rate of tumor cell proliferation in the areas beyond the HIFU-ablated tissues and consequently caused significant tumor volume shrinkage (tumor volumes:0.26±0.1,1.09±0.76, and 1.42±0.9 cm3 for treatment, sham, and no treatment control, respectively). Conclusions: From these results, we concluded that the intralesional injection of DOX-loaded PLGA after HIFU ablation is significantly more effective than HIFU alone for the treatment of solid tumors.