Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. While surgical removal of tumors and liver transplantation offer hope for treating HCC, there are several drawbacks to these treatment modalities. Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization is another promising cancer treatment strategy that delivers embolic and chemotherapeutic agents through blood vessels.
However, it faces limitations, such as inefficient delivery of the drugs and the inability to address tumor-induced immunosuppression. Researchers have now developed an injectable or catheter-administered laponite-containing gelatin hydrogel that can provide sustained, pH-dependent delivery of the chemotherapeutic agent, doxorubicin (DOX), to prime tumor cells for immunogenic cell death and an immunotherapeutic drug, anti-PD-1. The efficacy of this drug delivery hydrogel platform was tested using in vivo…
