3D printed drug-loaded implantable devices for intraoperative treatment of cancer
Surgery is an important treatment for cancer; however, local recurrence following macroscopically-complete resection is common and a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Systemic chemotherapy is often employed as an adjuvant therapy to prevent recurrence of residual disease, but has limited efficacy due to poor penetration and dose-limiting off-target toxicities.
Highlights
Continuous liquid interface production fabricates 3D drug-loaded devices.
Intraoperative 3D printed devices implanted to inhibit tumor recurrence.
Implantable arrowhead array devices offer directional drug release.
Real time 3D printing allows intraoperative implant fabrication.
Selective delivery of chemotherapeutics to the surgical bed may eliminate residual tumor cells while avoiding systemic toxicity. While this is challenging for traditional drug delivery technologies, we utilized advances in 3D printing and drug delivery science to engineer a drug-loaded arrowhead array device (AAD) to overcome these challenges. We demonstrated that such a device can be designed, fabricated, and implanted intraoperatively and provide extended release of chemotherapeutics directly to the resection area.
Using paclitaxel and cisplatin as model drugs and murine models of cancer, we showed AADs significantly decreased local recurrence post-surgery and improved survival. We further demonstrated the potential for fabricating personalized AADs for intraoperative application in the clinical setting.
Article information: C. Tilden Hagan, Cameron Bloomquist, Samuel Warner, Nicole M. Knape, Isaiah Kim, Hayley Foley, Kyle Wagner, Sue Mecham, Joseph DeSimone, Andrew Z. Wang, 3D printed drug-loaded implantable devices for intraoperative treatment of cancer, Journal of Controlled Release, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.02.024.