Targeted Polymerized Shell Microbubbles to Image and Treat Surgical Adhesions

Project Summary The long term goal of this Phase II SBIR project is to develop a commercially viable ultrasound contrast reagentUCRthat will allow the noninvasive identification and treatment of newly forming abdominal adhesions after surgerySuccessful implementation would have significant impact because we would both improve patient post surgical monitoring and considerably reduce the cost of adhesion related pathology on the health care systemAlthough surgical adhesions havefallen under the radarwhen it comes to public perceptiontheir heavy impact on the United States health care system is undeniableRoughlymillion abdominal surgical procedures of all types are carried out annuallyand almostof these patients will develop adhesionsWhile most are asymptomatica significant number can lead to serious and even life threatening complicationsThis Phase II investigation will build on our promising Phase I results defining a targeted polymerized shell microbubblePSMapproach to imaging and treating adhesionsTo successfully bring our technology closer to being commercially viable the aims include first optimizing and further characterizing our polymer stabilizedadhesion targetedultrasound microbubble modelfollowed by expanding our initial in vivo experiments to confirm their viability in both small and large animalsIn our final aimwe intend to better understand and confirm our Phase I result in which we could show adhesion break up in our rat model combining our targeted PSMs with non invasive ultrasound irradiationThese further studies can confirm the viability of our technology moving it towards eventual clinical trials and commercial viabilityThis product would not only allow the early alleviation of potentially problematic adhesionsbut also allow better monitoring of adhesion development and post surgical recoveryDue to the huge magnitude of the problemeven areduction in post surgical adhesions could save over $billion yearly in healthcare costs!Project Narrative This project seeks to develop a commercially viable ultrasound contrast reagentUCRthat will allow the noninvasive identification and treatment of newly forming abdominal adhesionsdeposits of fibrous scar tissueafter surgerySuccessful implementation would have significant impact because we would demonstrate a non surgical method for adhesion detection and adhesion break upThis will lead to improved patient postsurgical monitoring and recovery!