Synergistic co-delivery of doxorubicin and paclitaxel by porous PLGA microspheres for pulmonary inhalation treatment

PLGA porous microspheres loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) and paclitaxel (PTX) were developed for in situ treatment of metastatic lung cancer. The synergistic effect of the combined drugs was investigated against B16F10 cells to obtain the optimal prescription for in vivo studies. The combination therapy showed great synergism when DOX was the majority in the combination therapy, while they showed moderate antagonism when PTX is in major. The combination of DOX and PTX at a molar ratio of 5/1 showed the best synergistic therapeutic effect in the free form. However, the drugs exhibited more synergism in the PLGA microspheres at a molar ratio of 2/1, due to the difference in drug release rate. The in vivo study verified the synergism of DOX and PTX at the optimal molar ratio. These results suggested that dual encapsulation of DOX and PTX in porous PLGA microspheres would be a promising technology for long effective lung cancer treatment.