Visualization and Evaluation of Chemoembolization on 3D Decellularized Kidney Scaffold

Trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) has emerged as an effective palliative treatment for patients suffering from renal cell carcinoma. However, the current in vitro models for evaluating embolic performance and drug release kinetics of drug loaded embolic agents are limited since they greatly simplified the in vivo vascular systems as well as the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the organs. In this study, we developed a translucent decellularized rat kidney scaffold which could be applied on the evaluation of liquid based emulsions for TACE treatment. The characterization result of the decellularized kidney scaffold showed efficient decellularization as well as the integrity of the extracellular matrix with an enhanced transmittance up to 3.7% of the whole organ model. Using this model, we evaluated the clinically used doxorubicin-loaded ethiodised oil based emulsion with and without an emulsifier such as hydrogenated caster oil-40 (HCO-40). We found that the emulsion with enhanced stability could achieve comparably sustained drug release and perform better occlusion level especially when a mimicking accessory blood supply was available. Such a model that possesses intricate vascular networks and abundant in vivo physiological information might provide a unique approach for spatiotemporally evaluating the embolic performance and drug release kinetics of chemotherapeutic embolic agents and thus advance the development of novel embolic agents.