Chemotherapy is one of the most widely used cancer treatment modalities. However, its therapeutic outcome is not always sufficient due to the inefficient delivery of the administered anticancer drug to the tumors. To overcome this problem, a drug delivery system (DDS) that enables highly efficient delivery of a drug to a tumor must be developed. We previously developed a DDS based on nanosecond pulsed laser-induced photomechanical waves (PMWs), which can transiently enhance vascular permeability and hence drug accumulation in the tissue. On the other hand, some previous studies showed that PMWs themselves had the effects to kill tumor cells in vitro. In the present study, we first applied PMWs alone to subcutaneous tumors in mice and evaluated the cytocidal effect. We then applied PMWs to the tumors in combination with administration of an anticancer drug, cisplatin (CDDP), and evaluated enhancement of the antitumor efficacy. After seven days, the relative tumor volumes treated with PMWs alone were considerably smaller than those of untreated tumors, suggesting a photomechanical tumoricidal effect. Meanwhile, the tumor volumes treated with PMWs in combination with CDDP administration were significantly smaller than those of untreated tumors, indicating enhanced antitumor efficacy due to the synergistic effects of the photomechanical tumor inactivation and increased extravasation of CDDP by PMWs.
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