Co-delivery of dual-drugs with nanoparticle to overcome multidrug resistance

Abstract

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is becoming a significant obstacle for chemotherapeutic treatment in the battle against malignant cancers. Because of the emergence of MDR, higher doses of chemotherapeutic drugs are needed which eventually leads to intolerable toxicity and the death of patients. Different from the normal drug resistance that only resists to the previously administrated drugs, multidrug resistance diminishes the efficacies of a wide range of chemotherapeutic drugs, causing the decrease of intracellular drug concentration and the failure of killing enough cancer cells. Co-administration of multiple chemotherapeutic drugs cannot overcome MDR due to the different pharmacokinetic properties of combined drugs and only brings limited clinical advantage for the patients. Recent progress in nanomedicine and nanotechnology has enabled biomedical scientists to deliver multiple drugs of similar or different acting mechanisms into cancer cells with a predefined releasing profile. Thus, combining nanotechnology and co-delivery technique has the great potential to selectively deliver multiple drugs to overcome MDR and benefit cancer patients.