Intra-arterial Pressure-Enabled Drug Delivery Enhances Liver Tumor Treatment

A recent study aimed to test the hypothesis that Pressure-Enabled Drug Delivery (PEDD) could enhance the delivery of therapeutic glass microspheres (GMs) to liver tumors via hepatic artery infusion, surpassing the efficacy of conventional endhole microcatheter methods. The research was conducted on transgenic pigs (Oncopigs) with induced liver tumors, utilizing fluorescently labeled GMs for intra-arterial infusion. The study compared PEDD, facilitated by a specialized infusion device (TriNav; TriSalus Life Sciences, Westminster, Colorado), against conventional delivery methods in both lobar and selective infusions.

Near-infrared imaging was employed to detect the fluorescent signal of GMs within the tumors, with image analysis conducted using a custom deep learning algorithm (Visiopharm A/S) to quantify signal intensity relative to the tumor border. The findings revealed that PEDD significantly increased GM signal intensity in and around tumors during lobar infusions, with a 117% increase in tumor penetration compared to conventional delivery (P = .004). In selective infusions, PEDD also showed a 39% increase in tumor penetration over conventional methods (P = .032). Interestingly, the study found that lobar PEDD of GMs to the tumor was statistically equivalent to conventional selective delivery (P = .497), indicating that PEDD could offer a more effective approach to treating liver tumors without the need for selective infusion techniques.