The long-term goal of this Phase II SBIR project is to develop a commercially viable ultrasound contrast reagent (UCR) that will allow the noninvasive identification and treatment of newly forming abdominal adhesions after surgery. Successful implementation would have significant impact because we would both improve patient post-surgical monitoring and considerably reduce the cost of adhesion related pathology on the health care system. Although surgical adhesions have ?fallen under the radar? when it comes to public perception, their heavy impact on the United States health care system is undeniable. Roughly 7 million abdominal surgical procedures of all types are carried out annually, and almost 100% of these patients will develop adhesions. While most are asymptomatic, a significant number can lead to serious and even life-threatening complications. This Phase II investigation will build on our promising Phase I results defining a targeted polymerized shell microbubble (PSM) approach to imaging and treating adhesions. To successfully bring our technology closer to being commercially viable the aims include first optimizing and further characterizing our polymer-stabilized, adhesion-targeted, ultrasound microbubble model, followed by expanding our initial in vivo experiments to confirm their viability in both small and large animals. In our final aim, we intend to better understand and confirm our Phase I result in which we could show adhesion break-up in our rat model combining our targeted PSMs with non-invasive ultrasound irradiation. These further studies can confirm the viability of our technology moving it towards eventual clinical trials and commercial viability. This product would not only allow the early alleviation of potentially problematic adhesions, but also allow better monitoring of adhesion development and post-surgical recovery. Due to the huge magnitude of the problem, even a 50% reduction in post-surgical adhesions could save over $2.5 billion yearly in healthcare costs. !
This project seeks to develop a commercially viable ultrasound contrast reagent (UCR) that will allow the noninvasive identification and treatment of newly forming abdominal adhesions (deposits of fibrous scar tissue) after surgery. Successful implementation would have significant impact because we would demonstrate a non-surgical method for adhesion detection and adhesion break up. This will lead to improved patient post- surgical monitoring and recovery. !
