Nguyen An T, Wrenn Steven P
School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Nanomed Nanobiotechnol. 2014 May-Jun;6(3):316-25. doi: 10.1002/wnan.1255. Epub 2014 Jan 23.
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.
超声作为一种安全、可靠的成像方式广为人知。然而,超声的一个历史局限性在于其无法分辨长度尺度小于标称20微米的结构,这意味着传统超声无法用于诸如超声心动图和血管生成等需要对小血管进行成像的应用。超声造影剂或微泡的出现消除了这一局限性,并开启了增强超声应用的新一波浪潮。近年来,微泡已被设计用于实现另一种应用,即超声触发的药物递送。因此,超声造影剂等同于“治疗诊断”载体,意味着它们既能进行治疗(药物递送)又能进行成像(诊断)。然而,与具有更大载药能力的传统药物递送载体(如聚合物微胶囊和脂质体)相比,将超声造影剂用作药物递送载体可能并不理想。传统药物递送载体的缺点是它们本身没有声学活性,不能用于成像。“治疗诊断”载体的概念极具吸引力,近年来人们进行了许多尝试,以实现一种将微泡的回声性与脂质体的载药能力相结合的载体。这些尝试可分为三类,即包裹、 tethering和嵌套。其中,嵌套是最新的——也许也是最有前途的。 (注:原文中“tethering”未给出准确中文释义,可根据语境灵活翻译,此处保留英文)