Nanocarriers(s) Based Approaches in Cancer Therapeutics

Abstract

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. © 2020 Bentham Science Publishers.