(484c) Development of Magnetic Alginate Microcapsules As Dual Treatment (chemotherapy and hyperthermia) for Human Lung Cancer

Human lung cancer is one of the most common damaging tumors and it has the highest death rate. Magnetic hyperthermia has been successfully used for many years in cancer treatments. It is a non-invasive approach for tumor ablation and is based on heat generation by magnetic materials when subjected to an alternating magnetic field. Many studies have shown a significant reduction in tumor size when hyperthermia is combined with other treatments.

In this study, a novel magnetic polymeric microparticle with a core of magnetite and polymeric shell of alginate is reported. Alginate microparticles with magnetic core allow the combined treatment (chemotherapy and hyperthermia) in the same carrier and at the same time. These microparticles have been prepared using a fan-jet nozzle. The resulting alginate-magnetite microparticles are linked to an antitumor drug, cisplatin, and an antibody, epidermal growth factor (EGF).

Hyperthermia treatment must reach around 42ºC in cells area. The control of these temperatures in Petri plates have been done with a thermography camera. This system has been used to check the temperature profile.

The cytotoxicity of the microparticles have been tested with H460 lung cancer cell line. In vitro validation tests were developed in Petri plates and the cells viability was controlled by MTT assay. These experiments show that magnetic polymeric microparticles present a better effect of cancer cell mortality compared to the same drug delivery system without hyperthermia treatment previously reported in other studies.

As a result, this work reports the development and in vitro validation of magnetic microparticles, which in the future may be useful for various biomedical applications.