Evaluation of lauroyl-gemcitabine-loaded hydrogel efficacy in glioblastoma rat models.

Anticancer drug-loaded hydrogels are a promising strategy for the local treatment of incurable brain tumors such as glioblastoma (GBM). Recently, we demonstrated the efficacy of lauroyl-gemcitabine lipid nanocapsule hydrogel (GemC-LNC) in a U-87 MG xenograft orthotopic mouse model. In this study, we developed a reliable and reproducible surgical procedure to resect orthotopic GBM tumors in rats. GemC-LNC hydrogel integrity was tested after brain administration in rats and its anti-tumor efficacy was tested on a 9L syngeneic orthotopic model. We demonstrated that LNC integrity is maintained at least for one week after local administration of GemC-LNC. GemC-LNC was able to delay the formation of recurrences in 9L tumor-bearing resected rats, demonstrating the efficacy of this nanomedicine hydrogel in this preclinical model. Our results confirm that GemC-LNC, a hydrogel uniquely formed by a nanocarrier and a cytotoxic drug, could be a promising and safe delivery tool for the local treatment of operable GBM tumors