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Updated: Dec 24, 2025
An Injectable and Drug-loaded Supramolecular Hydrogel for Local Catheter Injection into the Pig Heart
Published on: June 7, 2015
Injectable Hydrogel-Based Nanocomposites for Cardiovascular Diseases
Xiaoshan Liao1,2, Xushan Yang1, Hong Deng1
1Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Insights
Injectable hydrogels offer a minimally invasive therapy for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Advances focus on improving targeted delivery and local retention of therapeutic agents for enhanced cardiac repair.
Area of Science:
- Biomaterials Science
- Regenerative Medicine
- Cardiovascular Research
Background:
- Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) represent a significant global health burden, necessitating innovative therapeutic strategies.
- Injectable hydrogels are emerging as a promising minimally invasive treatment option for CVDs.
- Current limitations include challenges in precise therapeutic agent delivery and local retention within the heart.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent advancements in injectable hydrogels for cardiovascular disease treatment.
- To explore various types of injectable hydrogels, including natural and synthetic formulations.
- To highlight the integration of therapeutic agents like stem cells, exosomes, and genetic materials within hydrogels.
Main Methods:
- Comprehensive literature review of injectable hydrogel applications in cardiovascular repair.
- Analysis of different hydrogel compositions (natural, synthetic) and their therapeutic payloads.
- Examination of the mechanisms underlying hydrogel-mediated cardiac repair.
Main Results:
- Injectable hydrogels demonstrate potential for targeted delivery and sustained release of therapeutic agents.
- Complexation with stem cells, nanoparticles, exosomes, and genetic materials enhances hydrogel efficacy.
- Key mechanisms involve providing a supportive microenvironment for cardiac tissue regeneration.
Conclusions:
- Injectable hydrogels, particularly nanocomposite formulations, show significant promise for treating cardiovascular diseases.
- Further research into optimizing delivery and retention will enhance their clinical applicability.
- These advanced hydrogels represent a potential breakthrough in cardiac repair strategies.
Abstract:
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), including a series of pathological disorders, severely affect millions of people all over the world. To address this issue, several potential therapies have been developed for treating CVDs, including injectable hydrogels as a minimally invasive method. However, the utilization of injectable hydrogel is a bit restricted recently owing to some limitations, such as transporting the therapeutic agent more accurately to the target site and prolonging their retention locally. This review focuses on the advances in injectable hydrogels for CVD, detailing the types of injectable hydrogels (natural or synthetic), especially that complexed with stem cells, cytokines, nano-chemical particles, exosomes, genetic material including DNA or RNA, etc. Moreover, we summarized the mainly prominent mechanism, based on which injectable hydrogel present excellent treating effect of cardiovascular repair. All in all, it is hopefully that injectable hydrogel-based nanocomposites would be a potential candidate through cardiac repair in CVDs treatment.
