CARRIERS FOR CANCER DRUG THERAPY
Ashwini Mahakal*
ABSTRACT
Conventional chemotherapy drugs show lack of specificity, inducing
reduced activity on the cancer treatment. They exhibit high toxicity
and after a prolonged period of administration the cancer cells develop
resistance (multiple\drugresistance,MDR).This situation leads to
increasing the side effects of drugs and affect the quality of the patients
life.In order to overcom ethe above mentioned problems, the recent
research community is focused primarily on developing drug delivery
systems which respond in different stimulus, in the range of
nanometer. The scope of nanotechnology to develop target specific carriers to achieve higher
therapeutic efficacy is gaining importance in the pharmaceutical and other industries.
Specifically, the emergence of nanohybrid materials is posed to edge over chemotherapy and
radiation therapy as cancer therapeutics. This is primarily because nanohybrid materials
engage controlled production parameters in the making of engineered particles with specific
size, shape, and other essential properties. It is widely expressed that these materials will
significantly contribute to the next generation of medical care technology and
pharmaceuticals in areas of disease diagnosis, disease prevention and many other treatment
procedures. This review focuses on the currently used nanohybrid materials, polymeric
nanoparticles and nanotubes, which show great potential as effective drug delivery systems
for cancer therapy, as they can be grafted with cell-specific receptors and intracellular
targeting molecules for the targeted delivery of therapeutics. Specifically, this article focuses
on the current status, recent advancements, potentials and limitations of polymeric
nanohybrids and functionalized carbon nanotubes as drug delivery carriers.
Keywords: nanohybrid materials, polymeric nanoparticles and nanotubes.
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