Pickering gel emulsion of lipiodol stabilized by hairy nanogels for intra-artery embolization antitumor therapy

Lipiodol has been widely used in clinical interventional therapy on hepatocellular cancer (HCC). It remains a huge challenge for Lipiodol to maintain in vivo stability, flowability and long-term artery embolization. Here, Hairy Poly (N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (hPNA) nanogels were synthesized for stabilizing a temperature sensitive Pickering gel emulsion of Lipiodol. The emulsion exhibited temperature sensitive sol-gel transition with high thermodynamic stability, and exhibited high yield stress in gel phase, but favorable flowability and shearing-thinning property in sol phase. In vivo artery embolization corroborated that the Pickering gel emulsion could achieve long-term X-ray imaging and complete embolization, leading to the enhancement of antitumor effect by depleting expression of VEGF and CD31. The Pickering gel emulsion is promising to be developed as a novel embolic material for TAE therapy.