Think of it as Liquid-Plumr for the circulatory system. Researchers designed a bouquet of tiny particles that overlaps the current circulation, looking for potentially fatal blood clots, and obliterates. The approach works in mice and could soon move to human trials.
Blood clots are bad news for the brain, heart and other organs. These blood cell masses can grow large enough to choke the veins and arteries, preventing oxygen to flow to critical organs. One of the main obstacles to deal with blood clots is to find where they were housed in the body. Although doctors locate clots, they are difficult to get rid of. Doctors often prescribe blood thinners that slow down the time it takes a clot to form, but these drugs can also cause excessive bleeding. Another method is stenting, a procedure in which a wire or flexible tube is used to reopen the vessel. Patients recover quickly but often spend at least one night in hospital.
looking for a better approach, biomedical engineer Donald Ingber of Harvard University and colleagues turned to nanoparticles. Platelet-shaped cells that circulate in the blood and help stop bleeding by forming clots, the nanoparticles are less than 100 nm wide and synthetic polymers bonded together as a ball of wet sand. Such as chips, particles clusters freely circulate in the blood and gravitate towards vessels blocked by the detection of a change in blood flow. Once there, they break into individual particles that stick to clot, releasing a drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which dissolves.
The researchers tested the approach on mice suffering from blood clots. After injecting the particles in animals, tPA-coated particles could reopen blocked vessels soon, despite hosting low doses of medicine, the team announced today online Science . None of the mice had uncontrolled bleeding, and because the particles are biodegradable, they are finally decomposed in the body.
"Achieving these particles so they break with the right amount of force was a challenge," says Ingber. "The most exciting thing we can do is to issue a thrombolytic drug directly to a site where a clot is, not knowing where he is. "he said that the particles could be used to deliver essentially all anti-inflammatory drug to a specific location where inflammation occurs, for example.
"the beauty of these nanoparticles is that they will not deliver the drug at any other place, but the field of stress," says Heyu Ni, platelet biologist at St. Michael's hospital in Toronto, Canada , with specific reference to blood clot sites. Another advantage of the approach, he says, is that it bypasses the question of estimating the amount of anticoagulant medication to give a patient. higher doses are effective but can cause excessive bleeding, while small doses are much safer, but can not do the job. Nanoparticles around this problem by depositing a small amount of medication directly into the clot. He notes that the nanoparticles could be used as a diagnostic tool to check for blockages that may need to be surgically removed because the places where the nanoparticles are found are easier to detect with ultrasound. "This could change our concept of how to deliver drugs effectively. I think this study as may be revolutionary."
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