Ultrasound-Induced Reactive Oxygen Species Mediated Therapy and Imaging Using a Fenton Reaction Activable Polymersome

Ultrasound techniques have been extensively employed for diagnostic purposes. Because of its features of low cost, easy access, and noninvasive real-time imaging, toward clinical practice it is highly anticipated to simply use diagnostic ultrasound to concurrently perform imaging and therapy. We report a H2O2-filled polymersome to display echogenic reflectivity and reactive oxygen species-mediated cancer therapy simply triggered by the microultrasound diagnostic system accompanied by MR imaging. Instead of filling common perfluorocarbons, the encapsulation of H2O2 in H2O2/Fe3O4. PLGA polymersome provides O-2 as the echo genic source and (OH)-O-center dot as the therapeutic element. On exposure to ultrasound, the polymersome can be easily disrupted to yield (OH)-O-center dot through the Fenton reaction by reaction of H2O2 and Fe3O4. We showed that malignant tumors can be completely removed in a nonthermal process.