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Updated: Jun 20, 2026
Magnetic-, Acoustic-, and Optical-Triple-Responsive Microbubbles for Magnetic Hyperthermia and Pothotothermal Combination Cancer Therapy
Published on: May 22, 2020
Magnetic nanoparticles encapsulated into biodegradable microparticles steered with an upgraded magnetic resonance
Pierre Pouponneau1, Jean-Christophe Leroux, Sylvain Martel
1NanoRobotics Laboratory, Canada Research Chair in Micro/Nanosystem Development, Fabrication and Validation, Department of Computer and Software Engineering and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal (EPM), C.P. 6079, Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3A7, Canada.
Abstract:
In this work, therapeutic magnetic micro carriers (TMMC) guided in real time by a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system are proposed as a mean to improve drug delivery to tumor sites. MRI steering constraints and physiological parameters for the chemoembolization of liver tumors were taken into account to design magnetic iron-cobalt nanoparticles encapsulated into biodegradable poly(d,l-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microparticles with the appropriate saturation magnetization (M(s)). FeCo nanoparticles displayed a diameter of 182nm and an M(s) of 209 emicrog(-1). They were coated with a multilayered graphite shell to minimize the reduction of M(s) during the encapsulation steps. FeCo-PLGA microparticles, with a mean diameter of 58 microm and an M(s) of 61emicrog(-1), were steered in a phantom mimicking the hepatic artery and its bifurcation, with a flow in the same order of magnitude as that of the hepatic artery flow. The steering efficiency, defined as the amount of FeCo-PLGA microparticles in the targeted bifurcation channel divided by the total amount of FeCo-PLGA microparticles injected, reached 86%. The data presented in this paper confirms the feasibility of the steering of these TMMC.
