Exploiting Nanomedicine for Cancer Polychemotherapy: Recent Advances and Clinical Applications

Abstract

The most important limitations of chemotherapeutic agents are severe side effects and the development of multi-drug resistance. Recently, the clinical successes achieved with immunotherapy have revolutionized the treatment of several advanced-stage malignancies, but most patients do not respond and many of them develop immune-related adverse events. Loading synergistic combinations of different anti-tumor drugs in nanocarriers may enhance their efficacy and reduce life-threatening toxicities. Thereafter, nanomedicines may synergize with pharmacological, immunological, and physical combined treatments, and should be increasingly integrated in multimodal combination therapy regimens. The goal of this manuscript is to provide better understanding and key considerations for developing new combined nanomedicines and nanotheranostics. We will clarify the potential of combined nanomedicine strategies that are designed to target different steps of the cancer growth as well as its microenvironment and immunity interactions. Moreover, we will describe relevant experiments in animal models and discuss issues raised by translation in the human setting.

Integration of Nanotechnology and Herbal Medicine: Therapeutic Potential for Improvement of Health Care

“…Combining these compounds within nanoparticles and their synergistic action can lead to increased degradation of cancer cells and reduced toxicity to healthy tissues, improving the overall effectiveness of the therapy. In conclusion, the combination of multiple herbal compounds within nanoparticles represents a compelling approach to exploit the full potential of herbal medicine [35][36][37][38].…”

Surface Functionalised Parenteral Nanoemulsions for Active and Homotypic Targeting to Melanoma

“…In particular, they can be surface functionalized with targeting moieties, such as antibodies or ligands for specific antigens over-expressed on melanoma cells [5]. Moreover, multiple drugs can be co-loaded in combined nanomedicines, allowing the separation of incompatible Pharmaceutics 2023, 15, 1358 2 of 15 compounds into physically distinct environments, to achieve synergy of action among distinct mechanisms, and to overcome chemo-resistance [6]. Within this context, hybrid nanomaterials represent a new paradigm, owing to their composite structure, drug-loading capability, and bioengineering-based approach [7][8][9].…”