International Journal of Nanomedicine (Jul 2022)

Moderate-Intensity Ultrasound-Triggered On-Demand Analgesia Nanoplatforms for Postoperative Pain Management

  • Song X,
  • Luan M,
  • Zhang W,
  • Zhang R,
  • Xue L,
  • Luan Y

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 17
pp. 3177 – 3189

Abstract

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Xinye Song,1,* Mengxiao Luan,2,* Weiyi Zhang,1 Ruizheng Zhang,1 Li Xue,1 Yong Luan1 1Department of Anesthesiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116011, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yong Luan, Email [email protected]: The restricted duration is a fundamental drawback of traditional local anesthetics during postoperative pain from a single injection. Therefore, an injectable local anesthetic that produces repeatable on-demand nerve blocks would be ideal.Methods: We offer ultrasound-triggered on-demand analgesia consisting of dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (DMSN) carried with ultrasound-sensitive perfluoropentane (PFP) and levobupivacaine (DMSN-bupi-PFP) to achieve repeatable and customizable on-demand local anesthetics.Results: The vaporization of liquid PFP was triggered by ultrasound irradiation to produce a gas environment. Subsequently, the enhanced cavitation effect could improve the release of levobupivacaine to achieve pain relief under a moderate-intensity ultrasound irradiation. DMSN-bupi-PFP demonstrated a controlled-release pattern and showed a reinforced ultrasonic sensitivity compared to levobupivacaine loaded DMSN (DMSN-bupi). The sustained release of levobupivacaine produced continuous analgesia of more than 9 hours in a model of incision pain, approximately 3 times longer than a single free levobupivacaine injection (3 hours). The external ultrasound irradiation can trigger the release of levobupivacaine repeatedly, resulting in on-demand analgesia. In addition, DMSN-bupi-PFP nanoplatforms for ultrasound-enabled analgesia showed low neurotoxicity and good biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo.Conclusion: This DMSN-bupi-PFP nanoplatform can be used in pain management by providing long-lasting and on-demand pain alleviation with the help of moderate-intensity ultrasound.Keywords: moderate-intensity ultrasound, phase-transitional, analgesia, nanomedicine

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