Brain tumor-targeted drug delivery strategies

Despite the application of aggressive surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy in clinics, brain tumors are still a difficult health challenge due to their fast development and poor prognosis. Brain tumor targeted drug delivery systems, which increase drug accumulation in the tumor region and reduce toxicity in normal brain and peripheral tissue, are a promising new approach to brain tumor treatments. Since brain tumors exhibit many distinctive characteristics relative to tumors growing in peripheral tissues, potential targets based on continuously changing vascular characteristics and the microenvironment can be utilized to facilitate effective brain tumor -targeted drug delivery. In this review, we briefly describe the physiological characteristics of brain tumors, including blood brain/brain tumor bathers, the tumor microenvironment, and tumor stem cells. We also review targeted delivery strategies and introduce a systematic targeted drug delivery strategy to overcome the challenges. (C) 2014 Chinese Pharmaceutical Association and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.