Abstract

REVIEW ON: NANOPARTICLES AS TARGETED DRUG DELIVERY IN CANCER

Siddhi Pandhare*, Mallinath Harwalkar, Gaurav Sawant, Mahale N.B, Chaudhari S.R

Abstract

Cancer treatment involving chemotherapy is typically accompanied by toxic side effects, thereby limiting the amount of the drug that can be given to a patient. Conventional chemotherapeutic agents are distributed nonspecifically in the body where they affect both cancerous and normal cells, thereby limiting the dose achievable within the tumor and also resulting in suboptimal treatment due to excessive toxicities. Molecularly targeted therapy has emerged as one approach to overcome the lack of specificity of conventional chemotherapeutic agents. However, the development of resistance in cancer cells can evade the cytotoxicity not only of conventional chemotherapeutics but also of these newer molecularly targeted therapeutics. Nanoparticles, by using both passive and active targeting strategies, can enhance the intracellular concentration of drugs in cancer cells while avoiding toxicity in normal cells Furthermore, when nanoparticles bind to specific receptors and then enter the cell, they are usually enveloped by endosomes via receptor-mediated endocytosis, thereby bypassing the recognition of P-glycoprotein, one of the main drug resistance mechanisms

Keywords: Chemotherapy, molecularly targeted therapy, passive targeting strategy, active targeting strategy.