Targeted Drug Delivery via Folate Receptors for the Treatment of Brain Cancer: Can the Promise Deliver?

Brain cancers are among the most lethal tumors due to their rapid development and poor prognosis. Despite the existing potential of novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of brain cancer, the major remaining challenge associated with clinical translation is the lack of effective and safe delivery strategies to ensure drug transport to tumor tissues following systemic administration. Folate receptors, known to overexpress on different types of cancer cells, have been used to develop targeted delivery of therapeutic agents for cancer therapy. In this review, the potential of exploiting the folate receptor to achieve targeted cell-specific delivery of nanoparticles containing brain cancer therapeutics will be discussed in tandem with an analysis of the possible reasons for the current lack of clinical translation. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the American Pharmacists Association.