Original Article Cisplatin loaded albumin mesospheres for lung cancer treatment

The low solubility of cisplatin in aqueous solution limits the treatment effectiveness and the application of cisplatin in various kinds of drug-eluting devices. Although cisplatin has a high solubility in Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), the toxicity of cisplatin can be greatly reduced while dissolved in DMSO. In this study, the solid powder of cisplatin-loaded albumin mesospheres (CDDP/DMSO-AMS), in a size range of 1 to 10 µm, were post-loaded with cis- platin and showed high cisplatin content (16% w/w) and effective cytotoxicity to lung cancer cells. Cisplatin were ef- ficiently absorbed into the albumin mesospheres (AMS) in DMSO and, most importantly, the toxicity of cisplatin was remained at 100% after the loading process. This CDDP/DMSO-AMS was designed for the intratumoral injection through the bronchoscopic catheter or dry powder inhalation (DPI) due to its high stability in air or in solution. This CDDP/DMSO-AMS showed a fast cisplatin release within 24 hours. In the in vitro study, CDDP/DMSO-AMS showed high effectiveness on killing the lung cancer cells including the non-small cell lung cancer (NCL-H23 and A549), malignant mesothelioma (CRL-2081) and the mouse lung carcinoma (Lewis lung carcinoma) cell lines. The albumin based mesospheres provide an ideal loading matrix for cisplatin and other metal-based drugs due to the high swell- ing degree and fast uptake rate in the organic solvents with high polarity. In addition, to investigate the effects of polysaccharides, such as chitosan and chondroitin, on enhancing loading efficiency and lasting cytotoxicity of cis - platin, the polysaccharide-modified albumin mesospheres were synthesized and loaded with cisplatin in this study.