Nanomedicine-Based Combinational Therapy for Breast Cancer

Abstract

Among the malignancies, breast cancer is the most common one and the high mortality rate indicates that the available treatment modalities are not sufficient to cater to this fatal disease. The complex pathophysiology of the disease demands multidrug therapy or combinational drug therapy, in which the two drugs show the nonoverlapping mode of action. Drug combinations such as doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide, bevacizumab and paclitaxel, lapatinib and paclitaxel, etc. are the clinically used combinations for breast cancer treatment where one component either enhances the therapeutic action of another drug or confers less toxicity. Along with combinational drug products, nanomedicine-based products are the promising approach for breast cancer management. Although marketed nanomedicine-based drug-products like Abraxane and Doxil were originally developed for generic anticancer purpose, they have already been exploited with fruitful clinical outcomes as breast cancer adjuvant therapy as well. However, advancements in the molecular level understanding of breast cancer and in-silico techniques have led to the development of novel nanotherapeutic strategies for complete disease amelioration, but still, some issues are there which need to be addressed such as optimal drug proportions and its control over several batches, large scalability, cost, and reproducibility of these nanomedicines during manufacturing to ensure the successful commercialization of nano-combination therapy. This chapter gives an insight into the general pathophysiology of breast cancer and available combinational drug therapy. Further, authors have elaborated on the applications of nano-based combinational drug therapy for breast cancer treatment. Researchers may get insight into the clinical trial status and limitations of nano-based combinational drug therapy for breast cancer.