Qin Qiaoxi, Zhang Qin, Li Pan, Wang Ronghui, Liu Ying, Deng Ruxi, Zhang Juanmin, Nie Quanyu, Zhou Hong, Zhou Yang
Department of Ultrasound, The Third People's Hospital of Chengdu, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China.
Department of Radiology, Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing, China.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2024 Jul 29;12:1445829. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1445829. eCollection 2024.
Lymphatic metastasis is the main cause of early-stage tumor spread, making the identification and therapy of metastatic sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) are highly desirable in clinic. Currently, suspected malignant SLNs typically undergo a series of independent operations in clinical practice, including imaging, staining, sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) and lymph node dissection (LND), which brings inconvenience to diagnosis and treatment, and may cause postoperative complications for patients. Moreover, the ordinary removal of tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs) may do harm to systemic immunity required for tumor eradication. Hence, we utilized the hybrid nanosystem (SPIOs + RPPs) we constructed before for the integrated staining, ultrasound imaging, and therapy of metastatic SLNs. In this study, SPIOs + RPPs could migrate into SLNs successfully to stain them black for easy visual identification. Beyond staining, the hybrid nanosystem could realize contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging in SLNs. Meanwhile, it could inhibit cancer cells to lower the tumor burden and reverse immune-suppressive microenvironment of metastatic SLNs effectively via magnetic hyperthermia immunotherapy in VX2 tumor-bearing rabbits with popliteal fossa lymph node metastasis. These findings indicate that SPIOs + RPPs is a potential multifunctional theranostic agent for detection and therapy of lymphatic metastasis.
淋巴转移是早期肿瘤扩散的主要原因,因此在临床上非常需要对转移性前哨淋巴结(SLN)进行识别和治疗。目前,疑似恶性的SLN在临床实践中通常要进行一系列独立的操作,包括成像、染色、前哨淋巴结活检(SLNB)和淋巴结清扫(LND),这给诊断和治疗带来不便,并且可能给患者造成术后并发症。此外,常规切除引流肿瘤的淋巴结(TDLN)可能会损害根除肿瘤所需的全身免疫力。因此,我们利用之前构建的混合纳米系统(超顺磁性氧化铁纳米颗粒+瑞香素磷脂复合物)对转移性SLN进行整合染色、超声成像和治疗。在本研究中,超顺磁性氧化铁纳米颗粒+瑞香素磷脂复合物能够成功迁移至SLN并将其染成黑色以便于视觉识别。除染色外,该混合纳米系统还能在SLN中实现超声造影(CEUS)成像。同时,在患有腘窝淋巴结转移的VX2荷瘤兔中,它能够通过磁热免疫疗法有效抑制癌细胞,降低肿瘤负荷并逆转转移性SLN的免疫抑制微环境。这些研究结果表明,超顺磁性氧化铁纳米颗粒+瑞香素磷脂复合物是一种用于检测和治疗淋巴转移的潜在多功能诊疗试剂。