Delivery of Agents Into Articular Cartilage With Electric Spark-Induced Sound Waves

Frontiers in Physics

Pritzker, Kenneth P. H.¹  Nieminen, Heikki J.¹  Finnilä²  a Pé³  rvi, Eetu³  Garcí³  Salmi, Ari³  Lampsijä⁴  rez, Alejandro⁵  , Mikko⁵ 

[1] Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Canada;Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Finland;Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland;Mount Sinai Hospital, Canada;Research Group of Medical Imaging, Physics and Technology, University of Oulu, Faculty of Medicine, Finland

关键词: Electric spark;    Osteoarthritis - Therapies <;    Cartilage;    Cartilage;    Sound;    Drug delibery;    ultrasound;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fphy.2018.00116

学科分类：物理（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Localized delivery of drugs into articular cartilage (AC) may facilitate the development of novel therapies to treat osteoarthritis (OA). We investigated the potential of spark-gap-generated sound to deliver a drug surrogate, i.e. methylene blue (MB), into AC. In-vitro experiments exposed bovine AC samples to either simultaneous sonication and immersion in MB (Treatment 1; n = 10), immersion in MB after sonication (Control 1; n = 10), solely immersion in MB (Control 2; n = 10), or neither sonication nor immersion in MB (Control 3; n = 10). The sonication protocol consisted of 1000 spark-gap -generated pulses. Delivery of MB into AC was estimated from optical absorbance in transmission light microscopy. Optical absorbance was significantly greater in the treatment group up to 900 µm depth from AC surface as compared to all controls. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), histological analysis, and digital densitometry (DD) of sonicated (n = 6) and non-sonicated (n = 6) samples showed no evidence of sonication-induced changes in AC. Consequently, spark-gap -generated sound may offer a solution for localized drug delivery into AC in a non-destructive fashion. Further research on this method may contribute to OA drug therapies.

【 授权许可】

CC BY