On June 22, reporters learned from the University of Science and Technology of China that teams led by Wang Yucai and Jiang Wei of the university recently published their latest research findings in the international academic journal Nature Nanotechnology. They proposed a new nanomedicine delivery paradigm termed Enhanced Permeability of Adjacent Vessels (EPAV). The study reveals that early micrometastases, even without developing their own blood vessels, can act on adjacent normal blood vessels to enable nanomedicines to leak out of the vasculature and accumulate in lesion sites. This discovery offers new strategies for the early diagnosis and precise treatment of cancer micrometastases.

Metastasis is the core reason why cancer is difficult to cure. Early micrometastases are usually tiny, hard to detect and eliminate, and lack independent blood vessels. Without blood vessels, how can nanomedicines reach them? Research demonstrates that as micrometastases grow, they continuously remodel the surrounding tissue microenvironment and induce local tissue stiffening. Such alterations constantly compress adjacent normal blood vessels, disrupt intercellular junctions of vascular endothelial cells, and trigger leakage in otherwise intact neighboring vessels. Nanomedicines leak through these adjacent blood vessels and subsequently infiltrate micrometastatic lesions. Though devoid of intrinsic vasculature, micrometastases create an alternative delivery "bypass" relying on nearby blood vessels.

As introduced, this finding overturns the conventional understanding of nanomedicine delivery, which previously centered on the inherent blood vessels of primary tumors. It also paves new avenues for the early diagnosis, precise therapy of micrometastases and the design of innovative nanomedicines in future research.

Source: Hefei Evening News