No abstract

Preparing drug-eluting beads (DEBs) from radiopaque materials such as titania (TiO 2 ) can meet clinical need for directly visualizing DEBs during drug-eluting bead transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE). Porous anatase-type TiO 2 microspheres with mean volume diameters of approximately 30 µm were obtained when silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) were introduced into the TiO 2 matrix by a sol-gel process involving a water-in-oil emulsion, and the SiNPs were then dissolved by subsequent treatment with NaOH solution. Of special note, microspheres prepared using SiNPs of approximately 20 -25 nm in diameter had a high specific surface area of~120 m 2 •g −1 and a high doxorubicin (DOX)-adsorption capacity of 150 mg•mL −1 , and they gradually released~10% of the adsorbed DOX within 5 days. The DOX-loaded microspheres were non-cytotoxic, moreover, and exerted anticancer effects on HeLa cells. We propose that the present TiO 2 microspheres are potentially useful as novel radiopaque embolic materials for DEB-TACE.