High-Performance Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)-Magnetic Microspheres Prepared by Rotating Membrane Emulsification for Transcatheter Arterial Embolization and Magnetic Ablation in VX₂ Liver Tumors

Interventional embolization is a popular minimally invasive vascular therapeutic technique and has been widely applied for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) therapy. However, harmful effects caused by transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and radioembolization, such as the toxicity of chemotherapy or excessive radiation damage, are serious disadvantages and significantly reduce the therapeutic efficacy. Here, a synergistic therapeutic strategy combined transcatheter arterial embolization and magnetic ablation (TAEMA) by using poly(lactic- co -glycolic acid) (PLGA)-magnetic microspheres (MMs) has been successfully applied to orthotopic VX 2 liver tumors of rabbits. These MMs fabricated by novel rotating membrane emulsification system with well-controlled sizes (100–1000 μm) exhibited extremely low hemolysis ratio and excellent biocompatibility with HepG2 cells and L02 cells. Moreover, experimental results demonstrated that, while exposed to alternating magnetic field (AMF) after TAE, the tumor edge could be heated up by more than 15 °C both in vivo and in vitro, whereas only a negligible increase of temperature was observed in the normal hepatic parenchyma (NHP) nearby. Sufficient temperature increase induces apoptosis of tumor cells. This can further inhibit the tumor angiogenesis and results in necrosis compared to the rabbits only treated with TAE. In stark contrast, tumors rapidly grow and subtotal metastasis occurs in the lungs or kidneys, causing severe complications for rabbits only irradiated under AMF. Importantly, the results from the biochemical examination and the gene expression of relative HCC markers further confirmed that the treatment protocol using PLGA-MMs could achieve good biosafety and excellent therapeutic efficacy, which are promising for liver cancer therapy.