Microspheres in cancer therapy

Abstract

Cancer microsphere technology is the latest trend in cancer therapy. It helps the pharmacist to formulate the product with maximum therapeutic value and minimum or negligible range side effects. Cancer is a disease in which the abnormal cells are quite similar to the normal cells, with just minute genetic or functional change. A major disadvantage of anticancer drugs is their lack of selectivity for tumor tissue alone, which causes severe side effects and results in low cure rates. Thus, it is very difficult to target abnormal cells by the conventional method of the drug delivery system. Microsphere technology is probably the only method that can be used for site-specific action, without causing significant side effects on normal cells. This review article describes various microspheres that have been prepared or formulated to exploit microsphere technology for targeted drug therapy in various cancers. We looked at the usefulness of microspheres as a tool for cancer therapy. The current review has been done using PubMed and Medline search with keywords.

Elastin-like polypeptides as a promising family of genetically-engineered protein based polymers

“…This makes it necessary to develop carriers that will make chemotherapy less toxic and more effective. Current research into neoplasm therapy already uses synthetic and natural soluble polymers such as liposomes (Sofou et al 2010; Cai et al 2014), microspheres and nanospheres (Vasir and Labhasetwar 2005; Mukerjee and Vishwanatha 2009; Montejo et al 2010; Rajput and Agrawal 2010) and also micelles (Prabaharan et al 2009; Wang et al 2014). There are reasons to believe that the application of thermosensitive polymers can lead to better therapeutic effects in comparison to traditionally employed methods.…”

Nanomedicine: a primer for surgeons

“…Ideally, anti-cancer drug molecules should act specifically on target cancer cells and accumulate preferentially at target tissues in sufficient concentration [55, 56]. Therefore, improvement of delivery efficacy of anti-cancer drugs can enhance the selective cytotoxicity to tumor cells, and is essential to reducing side effects in the body.…”

Radiotherapy Dose Optimization in Target Tissues Using Internal Radiation-Generating Devices and Microspheres

“…Speciic catheter paths for the various tumor types will be reined and developed in a manner that was similar to the evolution of the 90 Y microsphere treatment of liver cancers [17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. For example, renal artery access would facilitate 210 Po MA deposition into the vasculature of kidney tumors.…”

“…However, treatment procedures will utilize many spheres with the actual number determined by the cancer type and its progression. Although microsphere delivery methods other than the usual catheter approach [2-6] may be feasible, initial eforts will likely focus on the traditional delivery method [17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

“…A number of authors [15,16] have proposed a therapy approach that prevents the development of the tumor's vascular supply. Vascular disruption agents incorporate both chemotherapy [17,18] as well as radiotherapy [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Radiotherapy vascular disruption techniques utilizing 90 Y microspheres, including anti-angiogenic and radioembolization therapies, are used to treat liver cancers [18][19][20][21][22][23].…”