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Most local anesthetics used in medicine last only eight to 12 hours, or a day at most. Now, Boston Children's Hospital researchers have formulated a more effective slow-release injectable drug delivery system that achieved pain-numbing anesthetic effects lasting two to three weeks in rats, compared with a commercial formulation lasting about four to eight hours.

Given that nerve blocks in humans tend to work longer than in rats, this advancement, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, could substantially extend the effective duration of currently used anesthetics and have implications for other types of pain.

For decades, physicians have used liposomes, tiny balls of fatty compounds known as lipids, as gradual drug delivery systems in the body. Liposome composition determines how fast drugs leak out, with faster release leading to a more potent drug effect over a shorter period and potentially greater toxicity.

Until now, researchers believed that molecules leaked fastest from liposomes made of more "fluid" lipids. However, Yuan Wang, Ph.D., a research engineer in the laboratory of Daniel Kohane, MD, Ph.D., overturned this theory by showing that liposomes made of more fluid lipids release drugs that mix well with or dissolve in water, known as "hydrophilic" drugs, extremely slowly.

One way to make lipids more fluid is by adding many double chemical bonds to their tails. The double bonds mean that the lipids can't pack together as tightly.

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