Polymeric Nanomedicines and Bladder Cancer Therapy

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Bladder cancer is the ninth most common malignancy in the world featuring very high gender variability in occurrence. Current options for bladder cancer therapy include surgery, immunotherapy and radiotherapy with a trend towards multimodal treatments. However, successful management remains a challenge for urologists and oncologists because of the high risk for recurrence and progression. Particularly in the field of bladder cancer chemotherapy, efficacy of treatment might be improved by advanced drug delivery strategies aimed at prolonged residence time within the bladder cavity and increased permeability of the bladder-wall during intravesical instillation. Thus, encapsulation of the drug in various nanosystems, photodynamic therapy, mucoadhesion and targeted durgs are several strategies used in the treatment of bladder cancer. Moreover, a deeper understanding of the biology of bladder carcinogenesis and malignant progression stimulated the development of a new generation of anticancer drugs for targeted therapies that might result in increased specificity together with lower toxic potential and higher therapeutic indices. In addition, this chapter discusses the available strategies for "targeted therapies", focusing on molecular targets and the role of polymeric nanoparticles in the development of targeted therapy of bladder cancer.