Perspectives for Improving the Tumor Targeting of Nanomedicine via the EPR Effect in Clinical Tumors

Abstract

Over the past few decades, the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect of nanomedicine has been a crucial phenomenon in targeted cancer therapy. Specifically, understanding the EPR effect has been a significant aspect of delivering anticancer agents efficiently to targeted tumors. Although the therapeutic effect has been demonstrated in experimental models using mouse xenografts, the clinical translation of the EPR effect of nanomedicine faces several challenges due to dense extracellular matrix (ECM), high interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) levels, and other factors that arise from tumor heterogeneity and complexity. Therefore, understanding the mechanism of the EPR effect of nanomedicine in clinics is essential to overcome the hurdles of the clinical translation of nanomedicine. This paper introduces the basic mechanism of the EPR effect of nanomedicine, the recently discussed challenges of the EPR effect of nanomedicine, and various strategies of recent nanomedicine to overcome the limitations expected from the patients’ tumor microenvironments.