Multicomponent microspheres with spatiotemporal drug release for post-surgical liver cancer treatment and liver regeneration

Tumor recurrence after hepatic resection is a severe challenge of current liver cancer treatment. Here we present novel multicomponent microspheres (MCMs) with co-encapsulation and spatiotemporal drug release capabilities for post-surgical liver cancer treatment and liver regeneration. The MCMs were fabricated via a stepwise microfluidic platform and were composed of a sodium alginate (ALG) shell and gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) cores. Benefitting from the "particle-in-particle" structure, the MCMs provided the possibility of loading doxorubicin (DOX) and augmenter of liver regeneration (ALR) into the shell and the cores, respectively. Besides, the MCMs enabled rapid release of DOX and more sustained release of ALR. Therefore, the dual-drug-loaded MCMs exhibited prominent effects of postsurgical tumor killing and promoting liver regeneration. We anticipate that the present MCMs have remarkable potentials as versatile drug delivery systems for post-surgical cancer therapy.