Anti-cancer, antibacterial airway stent

Cases of respiratory tract diseases are on the rise, leading to increasing cases of airway stenosis, a narrowing of the airway that impairs breathing. Though some causes of stenosis are benign, most are associated with lung cancer. Because repairing the airway takes precedence, cancer treatment may be made more difficult after implanting the stent.

Li et al. created a stent that can restore airway function, while also fighting off new tumors and infection. By coating the expandable stent with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer treatments, doctors may be able to treat the stenosis and the cancer that caused it.

Self-expandable metallic stents are widely used to treat stenosis, but introducing a foreign object to the body increases the risk of infections like pneumonia or staphylococcus aureus.

“Conventional antibiotic therapy is often ineffective against infections caused by bacterial biofilms,” said author Zhaonan Li. “Choosing biomedical products containing silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) not only offers strong antibacterial capabilities but also avoids antibiotic resistance while improving the inflammatory microenvironment.”

Combined with a common chemotherapy drug, Diamminedichloroplatinum (DDP), the stent staves off new diseases.

“We have designed a novel electrospun drug-eluting fiber-coated airway stent, PCL-DDP-AgNPs,” Li said. “This stent possesses dual capabilities by carrying both DDP and AgNPs. It can achieve local drug delivery and release within the stent placement area, inhibiting bacterial biofilm formation, reducing granulation tissue hyperplasia, and delaying tumor recurrence during the treatment of benign/malignant airway stenosis.”

In the future, the researchers hope to create an in-situ tumor model to better assess the efficacy of stent-based cancer therapy.

Source: “All-in-one properties of an anticancer-covered airway stent for the prevention of malignant central airway obstruction,” by Zhaonan Li, Wenguang Zhang, Dechao Jiao, Chuan Tian, Kaihao Xu, Haidong Zhu, and Xinwei Han, APL Bioengineering (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0157341 .