Design and Development of a Novel Drug Delivery Catheter for Atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is a chronic progressive cardiovascular disease that results from plaque formation in the arteries. It is one of the leading causes of death and loss of healthy life in modern world. Atherosclerosis lesions consist of sub-endothelial accumulations of cholesterol and inflammatory cells [1]. However, not all lesions progress to the final stage to cause catastrophic ischemic cardiovascular events [2]. Early identification and treatment of high-risk plaques before they rupture, and precipitate adverse events constitutes a major challenge in cardiology today. Numerous investigations have confirmed that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease [3] [4] [5]. This confirmation has opened the treatment of this disease to many novel anti-inflammatory therapeutics. The use of nanoparticle-nanomedicines has gained popularity over recent years. Initially approved as anticancer treatment therapeutics [6], nanomedicine also holds promise for anti-inflammatory treatment, personalized medicine, target-specific treatment, and imaging of atherosclerotic disease [7]. The primary aim of this collaborative work is to develop and validate a novel strategy for catheter-directed local treatment of high-risk plaque using anti-inflammatory nanoparticles. Preselected drugs with the highest anti-inflammatory efficacy will be incorporated into a novel liposome nanocarrier, and delivered in-vivo through a specially designed catheter to high-risk atherosclerotic plaques. The catheter has specially designed perfusion pores that inject drug into the blood stream in such a controlled manner that the streamlines carry the nanoparticles to the stenotic arterial wall. Once the particles make it to the arterial wall, they can be absorbed into the inflamed tissue. In this paper, we discuss the design and development of an atraumatic drug delivery catheter for the administration of lipid nanoparticles.