Schematic illustration of sonochemotherapy using HA-modified nanocomposites.

Intraglottal pressure distributions depend upon glottal shape, size, and diameter. This study reports the effects of varying glottal angle on intraglottal and transglottal pressures using a three-dimensional Plexiglas model with a glottis having nine symmetric glottal angles and a constant minimal glottal diameter of 0.06 cm. The empirical data were supported by computational results using FLUENT. The results suggested that (1) the greater the convergent glottal angle, the greater outward driving forces (higher intraglottal pressures) on the vocal folds; (2) flow resistance was greatest for the uniform glottis, and least for the 10 degrees divergent glottis; (3) the greatest negative pressure in the glottis and therefore the greatest pressure recovery for diverging glottal shapes occurred for an angle of 10 degrees; (4) the smaller the convergent angle, the greater the flow resistance; (5) FLUENT was highly accurate in predicting the empirical pressures of this model; (6) flow separation locations (given by FLUENT) for the divergent glottis moved upstream for larger flows and larger glottal angles. The results suggest that phonatory efficiency related to aerodynamics may be enhanced with vocal fold oscillations that include large convergent angles during glottal opening and small (5 degrees - 10 degrees) divergent angles during glottal closing.

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Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) not only has greater tissue‐penetrating depth compared to photo‐stimulated therapies, but also can also trigger rapid drug release to achieve synergistic sonochemotherapy. Here, reactive oxygen species (ROS)‐responsive IR780/PTL‐ nanoparticles (NPs) are designed by self‐assembly, which contain ROS‐cleavable thioketal linkers (TL) to promote paclitaxel (PTX) release during SDT. Under ultrasound (US) stimulation, IR780/PTL‐NPs produce high amounts of ROS, which not only induces apoptosis in human glioma (U87) cells but also boosts PTX released by decomposing the ROS‐sensitive TL. In the U87 tumor‐bearing mouse model, the IR780/PTL‐NPs releases the drug at the target sites in a controlled manner upon US irradiation, which significantly inhibits tumor growth and induces apoptosis in the tumor tissues with no obvious toxicity. Taken together, the IR780/PTL‐NPs are a novel platform for sonochemotherapy, and can control the spatio‐temporal release of chemotherapeutic drugs during SDT.