Recent progress in drug delivery systems for anticancer agents

Cancer has become one of the most prevalent diseases worldwide, with increasing incidence in recent years. Current pharmacological strategies are not tissue-specific therapies, which hampers their efficacy and results in toxicity in healthy organs. Carbon-based nanomaterials have emerged as promising nanoplatforms for the development of targeted delivery systems to treat diseased cells. Single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWCNH) are graphene-based horn-shaped nanostructure aggregates with a multitude of versatile features to be considered as suitable nanosystems for targeted drug delivery. They can be easily synthetized and functionalized to acquire the desired physicochemical characteristics, and no toxicological effects have been reported in vivo followed by their administration. This review focuses on the use of SWCNH as drug delivery systems for cancer therapy. Their main applications include their capacity to act as anticancer agents, their use as drug delivery systems for chemotherapeutics, photothermal and photodynamic therapy, gene therapy, and immunosensing. The structure, synthesis, and covalent and non-covalent functionalization of these nanoparticles is also discussed. Although SWCNH are in early preclinical research yet, these nanotube-derived nanostructures demonstrate an interesting versatility pointing them out as promising forthcoming drug delivery systems to target and treat cancer cells.

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[FOREWORD] Recent progress in pharmaceutical technologies for particulate drug delivery systems

Drug Delivery System ◽

10.2745/dds.30.89 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 30 (2) ◽

pp. 89-89

Author(s):

Hideki Ichikawa

Keyword(s):

Drug Delivery ◽

Drug Delivery Systems ◽

Recent Progress ◽

Delivery Systems

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Targeted Drug Delivery in brain tumors- nanochemistry applications and advances

Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry ◽

10.2174/1568026620666201113140258 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 ◽

Author(s):

Babak Ganjeifar ◽

Seyyed Farhang Morshed

Keyword(s):

Drug Delivery ◽

Brain Tumors ◽

Anticancer Agents ◽

Targeted Drug Delivery ◽

Drug Delivery Systems ◽

Material Design ◽

Delivery Systems ◽

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound ◽

Targeted Drug ◽

Targeted Drug Delivery Systems

Background: Despite advances in surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, brain tumors are still a major health issue due to poor prognosis and high mortality rate. The current treatment options suffer limited efficiency. The main barriers to the effective clinical treatment are systemic toxicity of cytotoxic compounds, physical and functional barrier of the blood brain barrier (BBB), and low selectivity of the therapeutic agents to tumor cells. Objective: To review the advances in targeted drug delivery systems and strategies for brain tumors. Methods: We searched the electronic databases of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, BIOSIS Previews, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, google scholar and additional sources for published and unpublished trials using the set search terms. The date of the most recent search was 20 March 2020. The studies investigating the applications of targeted drug delivery for brain tumors were collected and the most relevant studies were selected for a comprehensive review. Results: Different anticancer agents and nucleic acid-based therapies have been developed and assessed as novel targeted drug delivery techniques for brain tumors. New vehicles include polymeric and liposomal nanoparticles (NPs), wafers, microchips, microparticle-based nanosystems and cells-based vectors. Strong evidence from preclinical and translational studies indicate the great potentials of these NPs-based technologies in brain tumors and improving the therapeutic outcomes. Research is ongoing to develop effective new anticancer agents as well as strategies for BBB modulation and penetration. Conclusions: New targeted drug delivery systems based on stimuli-responsive NPs have shown promising outcomes in brain tumors. Advances in material design and nanochemistry lead to enhanced intracranial concentrations. Non-invasive technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging-guided ultrasound and high-intensity focused ultrasound have been utilized for BBB modulation with higher precision and improved drug delivery performance.

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