Investigation of the Inertial Cavitation Activity of Sonosensitive and Biocompatible Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery Applications Employing High Intensity Focused Ultrasound

Abstract An approach to improve chemotherapy, while minimizing side effects, is a local drug release close to the tumorous tissue. For this purpose, the active drug component is often bound to nanoparticles employed as drug carriers. In the present study, we investigate sonosensitive, biocompatible poly-(L)-lactic acid (PLA) nanoparticles, which shall be used as drug carriers. For drug release, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) will be employed to introduce inertial cavitation, which separates the active drug component from the drug carrier. The cavitation effect generates an acoustic noise signal, which characterizes the cavitation activity and is expected to serve simultaneously as an indicator for the release of the active drug component. Depending on the ultrasound frequency, different acoustic levels of the inertial cavitation activity were measured. Investigations using a setup for passive cavitation detection (PCD) deliver quantitative results regarding the frequency dependence of the cavitation activity level of nanoparticles and reference media.