A colloidal hydrogel-based drug delivery system overcomes the limitation of combining bisphosphonates with bioactive glasses: in vitro evidence of a potential selective bone cancer treatment allied with bone regeneration.

Bisphosphonates are a class of drugs that induce bone cancer cell death and favor bone regeneration, making them suitable for bone cancer treatment. However, when combined with bioactive glasses to enhance bone regeneration, a chemical bond between biphosphonates and the glass surface inactivates their mechanism of action. A new colloidal hydrogel-based drug delivery system could overcome that limitation once bisphosphonates, such as zoledronic acid (ZA), are incorporated into hydrogel micelles, avoiding their interaction with the glass surface.

Ionic conductivity and mixed-ion effect in mixed alkali metaphosphate glasses.

In this work, mixed alkali metaphosphate glasses based on K-Na, Rb-Na, Rb-Li, Cs-Na and Cs-Li combinations were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), complex impedance spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. DSC analyses show that both the glass transition (T) and melting temperatures (T) exhibit a clear mixed-ion effect. The ionic conductivity shows a strong mixed-ion effect and decreases by more than six orders of magnitude at room temperature for Rb-Na or Cs-Li alkali pairs.