Dynamically tunable intravascular catheter delivery of hydrogels for endovascular embolization

Herein, we demonstrate a method of intravascular catheter-based extrusion of hydrogels with in situ photomodulation to dynamically adjust the hydrogel properties utilizing a custom catheter setup. A novel UV-integrated microcatheter (luminal diameter 0.9 mm) was assembled and a suite of low-viscosity, shear thinning hydrogel precursors were formulated for delivery. We show that by modulating the precursor flow rate (up to 0.2 ml/min) as well as the UV power (0–37.5 mW), we can extrude hydrogels with viscosities dynamically varying from < 1 to 584 Pa s. To demonstrate the initial utility of this system, we successfully performed embolization of a saccular aneurysm model (diameter ~ 12 mm) with a pulsatile vascular flow phantom. These findings yield direct application ideas in clinical therapeutics such as vascular embolization in a variety of disease states, including cerebral aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, vascularized tumors, and hemorrhagic vessels.