Current Nanomedicine - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2020

The skin cancer has become a leading concern worldwide as a result of high mortality rate. The treatment modality involves radiation therapy, chemotherapy or surgery. More often combination therapy of chemotherapeutic agents gives better solution over single chemotherapeutic agent. The Globocon report suggested that high incidence and mortality rate in skin cancer is growing day-to-day. This type of cancer is more prevalent in that area where a person is highly exposed to sunlight. The nanotechnology-based therapy is nowadays drawing attention and becoming a more important issue to be discussed. The nanotherapy of skin cancer is dealt with various approaches and strategies. The strategic based approaches imply nanoparticles targeting carcinoma cells, functionalized nanoparticles for specific targeting to cancer cells, receptor-mediated active targeting as nanoshells, nanostrutured lipid carriers, liposome, ethosome, bilosome, polymeric nanoparticle, nanosphere, dendrimers, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, solid lipid nanoparticles and fullerenes which are highly efficient in specific killing of cancer cells. The passive targeting of chemotherapeutic agents is also helpful in dealing with carcinoma due to enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR). The article outlines nano-based therapy currently focused globally, and the outcomes of the therapy as well.

Background: Drug delivery to cancerous brain is a challenging task as it is surrounded by an efficient protective barrier. The main hurdles for delivery of bioactive molecules to cancerous brain are blood brain barrier (BBB), the invasive nature of gliomas, drug resistance, and difficult brain interstitium transportation. Therefore, treatment of brain cancer with the available drug regimen is difficult and has shown little improvement in recent years. Methods: We searched about recent advancements in the use of nanomedicine for effective treatment of the brain cancer. We focused on the use of liposomes, nanoparticles, polymeric micelles, and dendrimers to improve brain cancer therapy. Results: Nanomedicines are well suited for the treatment of brain cancer owing to their highly acceptable biological, chemical, and physical properties. Smaller size of nanomedicines also enhances their anticancer potential and penetration into blood brain barrier (BBB). Conclusion: Recently, nanomedicine based approaches have been developed and investigated for effective treatment of brain cancer. Some of these have been translated into clinical practice, in order to attain therapeutic needs of gliomas. Future advancements in nanomedicines will likely produce significant changes in methods and practice of brain cancer therapy.

Nanomedicine is an emerging field, which constitutes a new direction in the treatment of cancer. The advent of nanotechnology has the potential to greatly facilitate the early detection and treatment of cancer. Nanocarriers are a group of nano-sized vehicles devised to deliver loaded bioactive(s) to target malignant cells, tissues or organs and have provided remarkably improved therapeutic efficacy for cancer therapy. A variety of nanocarriers(s)such as dendrimers, nanoparticle(s), liposomes, micelles, gold carriers, solid lipid carriers, carbon nanotubes, magnetic carriers and viral carriers, incorporating cytotoxic therapeutics have emerged as striking delivery system(s) in the area of cancer research. To improve the biological distribution of therapeutic bioactive(s), some modified carriers have designed to accommodate efficient loading and release of drugs with a wide spectrum of chemical and physical characteristics. In addition, physicochemical modifications of the surface or interior of NPs allow for modulation of pharmacokinetic features as per clinical demands. However, cancer-related mortality still remains high and drug-mediated cancer treatment is a challenging research field despite the remarkable advances in targeting efficiency and therapeutic efficacy demonstrated and resulted from NPs.This review focuses primarily on current nano drug delivery systems for cancer therapy. The current challenges related to therapeutic nanomedicines, as well as critical analysis of the different delivery nanoparticles, are also discussed.

Cancer, a complex series of diseased conditions, contributes to a significant health problem and is a leading cause of mortalities across the world. Lately, with the advent of improved diagnostics and imaging techniques, and newer advanced oral chemotherapeutics; millions of cancer affected people can lengthen their life span. Despite all the challenges associated with an active chemotherapeutic molecule like microenvironment and the intestinal barrier of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) etc., the oral delivery remains the most acceptable route of drug administration. In this regard, nanotechnology has played a significant role in the counteracting the challenges encountered with newly developed molecules and aiding in improving their bioavailability and targetability to the tumour site, while administering through the oral route. Several literature instances document the usage of nanostructured drug delivery systems such as lipid-based, polymerbased or metallic nanomaterials to improve the efficacy of chemotherapy. Besides, sitespecific targeted surface-modified drug delivery system designed to deliver the active molecule has opened up to the newer avenues of nanotechnology. However, the issue of potential toxicity allied with nanotechnology cannot be compromised and thus, needs specific ethical regulations and guidelines. The various in vitro models have been developed to evaluate the in vitro toxicity profile which can be further correlated with the invivo model. Thus, this review provides a summarized account of the various aspects related to the role of nanotechnology in cancer therapy and various related issues thereof; that must be triumphed over to apprehend its full promise.

Cancer chemotherapeutic administration by oral route has the potential to create “hospitalization free chemotherapy”. Such a therapeutic approach will improve patient compliance and significantly reduce the cost of treatment. In current clinical practice, chemotherapy is primarily carried out by intravenous injection or infusion and leads to various unwanted effects. Despite the presence of oral delivery challenges like poor aqueous solubility, low permeability, drug stability and substrate for multidrug efflux transporter, cancer chemotherapy delivery through oral administration has gained much attention recently due to having more patient compliance compared to the intravenous mode of administration. In order to address the multifaceted oral drug delivery challenges, a hybrid delivery system is conceptualized to merge the benefits of both polymeric and lipid-based drug carriers. Polymer-lipid hybrid systems have presented various significant benefits as an efficient carrier to facilitate oral drug delivery by surmounting the different associated obstacles. This carrier system has been found suitable to overcome the numerous oral absorption hindrances and facilitate the intravenous-to-oral switch in cancer chemotherapy. In this review, we aimed to discuss the different biopharmaceutic challenges in oral delivery of cancer chemotherapy and how this hybrid system may provide solutions to such challenges.

A liposome is a spherical vesicle composed of a bilayer of lipid with central aqueous cavity. Liposomes are the first nano vesicular drug delivery carriers, which are successfully translated into real-time clinical application and gained great potential in the past 30 years. The characteristics of liposomes to encapsulate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs, their biocompatibility and biodegradability make it attractive nanocarriers in drug delivery area. Apart from this, great technical advancement has been made to develops second-generation liposomes named as stealth liposomes, cationic liposomes, triggered release liposomes and ligand targeted liposomes. This led to widespread use of liposomes in various areas including anticancer therapeutics, diagnostics and imaging agents. Therefore, the presents review article made an extensive discussion of various liposomes and its applications in cancer treatment.