Using a Cavitation Model to Represent the Acoustic Release Kinetics from Folated Micelles

Abstract

Anti-neoplastic drugs used for cancer treatment have various damaging effects on healthy cells, leading to several side effects in patients undergoing chemotherapy. The encapsulation of these agents in nanoparticles, such as micelles, reduces their adverse effects on healthy tissues in the body, thus decreasing the side effects of conventional chemotherapy. The aim of this work is to develop a MATLAB program to measure the kinetics of drug release from targeted and non-targeted micelles, triggered by the use of ultrasound, followed by re-encapsulation of the drug in the micelles once the stimulus has been turned off. This program allows the determination of three constants α, β and λ that define the release and re-encapsulation behavior in our drug delivery system. After the simulation was done through the MATLAB program, the results showed that drug release is proportional to increasing power density, as evidenced by the correlation between the alpha parameter and power density. Additionally, the re-assembly behavior, quantified by the beta parameter also increased as the power density increases. The third parameter, lambda, which is associated with the initial phase of the release process, showed a constant value regardless of the insonation power density. A better understanding of the kinetics involved in this drug delivery system helps in determining the best ultrasound parameters to be used in future in vitro experiments.