Targeted drug delivery in pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Effective drug delivery in pancreatic cancer treatment remains a major challenge. Because of the high resistance to chemo and radiation therapy, the overall survival rate for pancreatic cancer is extremely low. Recent advances in drug delivery systems hold great promise for improving cancer therapy. Using liposomes, nanoparticles, and carbon nanotubes to deliver cancer drugs and other therapeutic agents such as siRNA, suicide gene, oncolytic virus, small molecule inhibitor, and antibody has been a success in recent preclinical trials. However, how to improve the specificity and stability of the delivered drug using ligand or antibody directed delivery represent a major problem. Therefore, developing novel, specific, tumor-targeted drug delivery systems is urgently needed for this terrible disease. This review summarizes the current progress on targeted drug delivery in pancreatic cancer and provides important information on potential therapeutic targets for pancreatic cancer treatment.

Figure 1. Targeted drug delivery models in pancreatic cancer

Liposomes, nanoparticles, and carbon nanotubes are most commonly used vectors to deliver cancer chemotherapy drugs and other therapeutic agents such as shRNA, tumor suppressor gene, suicide gene, oncolytic virus, small molecule inhibitor and antibody for pancreatic cancer treatment. Specific surface receptors or ligands in pancreatic cancer can be used to enable targeted delivery of the therapeutic agents to reduce the toxicity and increase the efficacy of therapy. A few examples of target molecules include EGFR, uPAR, transferrin, ERBB2, CA125, and stem cell markers such as EpCAM, CD44, and CD133. A representative delivery model in which nanoparticles carrying shRNA or suicide gene conjugated with target molecules, and the corresponding pathways inside the cells are shown.