Nanoparticles for drug delivery in cancer treatment

Nanoparticles (size in nanometer range) provide a new mode of cancer drug delivery functioning as a carrier for entry through fenestrations in tumor vasculature allowing direct cell access. These particles allow exquisite modification for binding to cancer cell membranes, the microenvironment, or to cytoplasmic or nuclear receptor sites. This results in delivery of high drug concentrations to the targeted cancer cell, with reduced toxicity of normal tissue. Several such engineered drugs are in clinical practice, including liposomal doxorubicin and albumin conjugate paclitaxel. The carrier mediated paclitaxel has already shown significant efficacy in taxane resistant cancers, an approach highly relevant in prostate cancer, where taxanes are the treatment of choice. Other modifications including transferrin receptor and folate receptor targeted drug delivery molecules are in study. This new technology provides many exciting therapeutic approaches for targeted high concentration drug delivery to cancer cells with reduced injury of normal cells. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.