Opioids are no doubt an effective pain reliever, but they are addictive. Given this shortcoming, scientists from the Boston Children's Hospital have developed a new system for influencing pain in various parts of the body, which includes a portable device that generates ultrasound signals and liposomes (microscopic artificial vesicles with lipid membrane walls) filled with a nerve blocking agent..

New idea is to replace the use of opioids in patients with local pain. They will receive a liposome injection and a portable ultrasound device at the hospital.. At home, patients can use the device to non-invasively send pulses of ultrasound through tissues into liposomes.. This will cause molecules embedded in the walls of liposomes known as sonosensitizers (approved for use by the FDA) to create reactive oxygen species that react with the lipids of the liposome membranes and destroy the walls of the vesicles, thereby releasing the nerve blocking agent (tetrodotoxin) right where it is needed.. The process can run multiple times.

Developed by a team led by Dr. Daniel Kohan, liposomes can be activated within three days of injection. The degree of effect on pain can then be controlled by adjusting the duration and intensity of the ultrasound..

“Opioid addiction is a growing health problem,” Kohan says.. “In the future, the new system will help fight it by giving patients access to non-opioid nerve blocking drugs.”.

An article about the study was published this week in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering..

aspect. net.