Bioresorbable Electronic Patch (BEP) Enabled Active Control of Drug Delivery for Brain Tumor Therapy

Abstract

Brain tumor disease is one of the harshest human cancers to treat. The presence of blood-brain barrier which prevents penetration of drugs into brain and residual tumors after surgical resection make brain tumor disease still remain unsolvable. Recently, clinical efforts to overcome those limitation of existing treatment of brain tumor disease have reported. Especially, implantable drug delivery system using biodegradable polymer wafer has been clinically used. However, it has serious demerits that the drug delivery is uncontrollable and inefficient. Emerging of new drug delivery system with active controllability is highly demanding. Here, I demonstrate a bioresorbable electronic patch (BEP) enabled sustainable, controllable, and localized drug delivery for brain tumor therapy. A natural bioresorbable polymer, starch, is fabricated as a form of flexible patch for conformal contact with biological tissues. An anti-cancer drug named doxorubicin (DOX) is loaded in the starch patch. Functional group modification of starch enables sustainable release of drug by forming covalent bonding between starch and DOX. Bioresorbable magnesium (Mg) heater performs wireless RF heating resulting in thermal actuation of drug delivery by breaking the bonding. To prevent excessive heating, real-time temperature monitoring by wireless temperature sensor as a form of LC oscillator is achieved. Therapeutic effects of BEP is verified by in vivo demonstration include tumor recurrence analysis using MRI and survival study. Therefore, BEP enabled active control of drug delivery has a great potential for becoming a novel and efficient treatment of brain tumor disease.