An ultrasound-controllable release system based on waterborne polyurethane/chitosan membrane for implantable enhanced anticancer therapy

Anti-relapse therapy after surgery plays a critical role in cancer therapy. New strategies maximizing the delivery of drugs to tumor cells while reducing toxic side effects on normal tissues and organs are still urgently required. In order to solve the problems of the poor delivery and inadequate distribution of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic drugs in the clinical application, an ultrasound-controllable and implantable release-system that utilized waterborne polyurethane (WPU) and chitosan (CS) composite membrane as drug carrier with wide flexible loading capacity for doxorubicin (DOX) was described in present work. Benefiting from the hydrophilic segment in WPU and bioactivity of amino groups on side chains of CS, the resulting composite films exhibited fine biodegradability, favorable cytocompatibility and excellent blood compatibility. The in vitro release studies illustrated that the drug-loading membranes displayed a well sustained release effect manifested in slow release, stability and no sudden release, and the DOX was able to release in an ultrasound-controlled manner. Cellular uptake assay and CCK 8 assay showed that the DOX can be released efficiently from the drug-loading matrix and taken up by tumor cells. As a means of adjuvant local treatment, this work provided a facile approach to the design of ultrasound-regulated membrane matrix that is highly beneficial not only due to the higher and long-term therapeutic efficiency, and improvement of utilization efficiency of chemotherapeutic drugs but also the low toxicity to normal cells.