Ultrasound mediated local drug delivery

Abstract

In the field of drug delivery, it has great importance to have sufficient drug accumulation at the diseased site. To obtain this goal it is important that at first, a high concentration of the administered dose at the diseased site has to be present and second, the drug has to be able to extravasate homogeneously at the region to be treated. Ultrasound can be used in different ways to improve these problems. To be able to develop new or better strategies for delivering drugs with the use of ultrasound it is extremely important to understand the underlying mechanisms. There are two interrelated aspects in this research. First, in order to be able to control the process, there has to be understanding about the physical interactions induced with ultrasound. And second, it is important to determine which bioeffects occur as a response on these physical mechanisms. This thesis will give an overview of the used techniques to improve local drug delivery problems with the use of ultrasound.