Liposomal Formulations for Treatment of Carcinoma

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Cancer represents one of the world's most devastating diseases. Current cancer treatments include surgical intervention, radiation and chemotherapeutic drugs, which often also kill healthy cells and cause toxicity to the patients. Tumor specific drug delivery has become increasingly interesting in cancer therapy, as the use of chemotherapeutics is often limited due to severe side effects. Conventional drug delivery systems have shown low efficiency and a continuous search for more advanced drug delivery principles is therefore of great importance. Liposomes as pharmaceutical drug carriers were developed to increase antitumour efficacy and decrease drug toxicity. As a biodegradable and essentially nontoxic platform, liposomes can be used to encapsulate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic active principles and be utilised as drug carriers in drug delivery systems. The objective of this chapter is to discuss some clinical application of liposomes as drug delivery systems in the treatment of carcinomas (cancers of the epithelial cells).