In-Situ Incorporation of Antibiotics During Suspension Polymerizations

Embolization is a radiological technique that consists basically in the intentional occlusion of a blood vessel by an embolic agent. A suspension polymerization process was developed to allow for production of PVA/PVAc embolic particles with core-shell morphology and controlled density. The core-shell morphology ban be obtained thhrough superficial saponification of PVAc beads. This technology is now modified to allow for in-situ incorporation of antibiotics (amoxyciline) in the PVA/PVAc embolic particles. The incorporation of amoxyciline promotes important modifications of some of the final polymer properties, including the particle morphology (amoxyciline shows surface activity), the molecular weight distribution (amoxyciline is partially copolymerized) and the characteristic transition temperatures (amoxyciline changes the molecular structure of the polymer chains). As a consequence, the properties of the obtained polymer particles depend on the amoxyciline concentrations and on how the drug is added into the polymerization medium. Despite that, polymer beads with useful chemical and biochemical properties can be produced for real applications.