The potentials of nanotechnology-based drug delivery system for treatment of ovarian cancer

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes for death of women. Every year the percentage of mortality rate is increasing day by day. Various chemotherapeutic agents are used to increase the survival rate of patients with ovarian cancer, but the available conventional dosage forms/marketed preparations are associated with several limitations. The use of nanotechnology in drug delivery contributes to their small size (10-100 nm), which improves the circulation and enables superior accumulation of therapeutic drugs at the tumor sites. In future, the use of nanotechnology will enable passive targeting and further improvements can be made using targeting moieties.

Recent progress in synergistic chemotherapy and phototherapy by targeted drug delivery systems for cancer treatment

“…Traditional chemotherapy is the use of chemical drugs to control and kill tumour cells to achieve the purpose of treatment. Chemotherapy drugs can be circulated throughout the body with the vast majority of tissues and organs, which is an effective way for systemic treatment [2]. However, chemotherapy drugs have poor targeting and doselimiting toxicity problems.…”

Complement system's role in cancer and its therapeutic potential in ovarian cancer

“…The main chemotherapeutics for ovarian cancer are platinum‐based drugs (eg, cisplatin) and taxanes, which exhibit significant side effects and are not effective in recurrence of the disease. Unfortunately, therapy resistance develops rather quickly in ovarian cancer, and the estimated survival rate for ovarian cancer is only about 3 years with relapse usually occurring within 2 years of diagnosis . Although cisplatin was introduced several decades ago, overall survival of the ovarian cancer patients has not increased dramatically .…”

“…Unfortunately, therapy resistance develops rather quickly in ovarian cancer, and the estimated survival rate for ovarian cancer is only about 3 years with relapse usually occurring within 2 years of diagnosis. 81 Although cisplatin was introduced several decades ago, overall survival of the ovarian cancer patients has not increased dramatically. 80 Thus, novel therapeutic approaches are needed for an effective treatment of ovarian cancer.…”

Nano drug delivery systems for ovarian cancer therapy

“…Nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems can be beneficial for the controlled delivery of chemotherapeutics by means of location and duration without undesirable side effects by overcoming several drug delivery barriers through passive or active targeting strategies [11,20] SKOV3 cells, indicating a strong synergism. Optimal cytotoxicity was observed at a 2:1 ratio of cisplatin:paclitaxel.…”

“…Despite improvements in the field of medicine, the reason for high mortality in ovarian cancer is late diagnosis because of nonspecific symptoms [9] (almost 75% [8,10] at stage III or later), and relapse of the disease [1][2][3] . The most significant reason for the recurrence of ovarian cancer is resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy in the majority of patients in progressive stages, although the initial success in treatment with agents such as cisplatin or carboplatin is more than 70% [3,11]. It is known that resistant cancer cells develop resistance to platinum compounds by reducing cell uptake, increasing elimination, inactivation/detoxification of drugs, and accelerating DNA repair [12][13][14].…”