Noncavitational nonporative ultrasound elicits marked in vivo augmentation of tumor drug delivery with targeted perfluorocarbon nanoparticles

Background and Objective: Augmentation of local drug delivery from targeted nanoparticles (NP) with nondestructive, noncavitational clinical ultrasound (US) offers the potential to enhance therapeutic efficacy in diseases such as cancer while limiting adverse systemic side effects. This lab has demonstrated augmentation of drug delivery from alphavbeta3-targeted perfluorocarbon NP and US in cancer cells in vitro (Crowder et al, 2005). The present study investigates the utility of conventional, clinical US for augmentation of drug delivery in vivo in a transgenic mouse cancer model (K14-HPV16) that develops squamous cell carcinomas.