Production of Paclitaxel Loaded PLA-Lecithin Ultrasound Contrast Agents

Abstract

Drug loaded PLA (or PLGA) mirobubbles that combine properties of ultrasound imaging contrast agents and drug carriers suffer from low encapsulation efficiency and difficulty to destruction with diagnosis ultrasound. In this paper, a new type of multifunctional paclitaxel-loaded poly lactide-lecithin (PLA-lecithin) microbubbles has been developed with a method of ultrasonic double emulsion solvent evaporation (UDES) combined with lyophilization, and single-factor of ultrasonic time was studied to influence bubble size and drug loading efficiency. Bubbles were characterized to be well dispersed, with size of 300nm~2um, and showed increased ultrasound imaging on rabbit liver and heart after intravenous injection.