Recent Advances in Drug-Eluting Beads

Drug-eluting beads are gel particles capable of loading drugs. They can both occlude tumor-feeding vessels to block blood supply, leading to tumor cell necrosis and tumor shrinkage, and deliver drugs locally to directly kill tumor cells. With such advantages as precise delivery, sustained drug release, low systemic toxicity, and ease of use, drug-eluting beads have been widely used in transarterial chemoembolization therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma and other cancers. This review systematically introduces the types of drug-eluting beads and their drug loading and release properties, elaborates on existing preparation techniques and their characteristics, and summarizes the clinical research progress of these drug-eluting beads in the interventional treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, metastatic liver cancer, lung cancer, etc., with an outlook on future research directions for drug-eluting beads.