Bone tumors effective therapy through functionalized hydrogels: current developments and future expectations

Abstract

Primary bone tumors especially, sarcomas affect adolescents the most because it originates from osteoblasts cells responsible for bone growth. Chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation therapy are the most often used clinical treatments. Regrettably, surgical resection frequently fails to entirely eradicate the tumor, which is the primary cause of metastasis and postoperative recurrence, leading to a high death rate. Additionally, bone tumors frequently penetrate significant regions of bone, rendering them incapable of self-repair, and impairing patients' quality of life. As a result, treating bone tumors and regenerating bone in the clinic is difficult. In recent decades, numerous sorts of alternative therapy approaches have been investigated due to a lack of approved treatments. Among the novel therapeutic approaches, hydrogel-based anticancer therapy has cleared the way for the development of new targeted techniques for treating bone cancer and bone regeneration. They include strategies such as co-delivery of several drug payloads, enhancing their biodistribution and transport capabilities, normalizing accumulation, and optimizing drug release profiles to decrease the limitations of current therapy. This review discusses current advances in functionalized hydrogels to develop a new technique for treating bone tumors by reducing postoperative tumor recurrence and promoting tissue repair.

Keywords: Functionalized hydrogels; bone tumors; targeted; therapy.

Figure 1.

The synthesis of bifunctional OSA-CS-PHA-DDP hydrogels and their bio-applications are depicted schematically. Reproduce with permission from reference (Luo et al., 2019).

Figure 2.

Developmental stages and evolution of hydrogels.

Figure 3.

Classification of hydrogels based on various features.

Figure 4.

A schematic representing the progress of 3D bioprinting techniques (Vanaei et al., 2021).

Figure 5.

Scheme showing the fabrication process of GG/GO and GG/GO/Cur scaffolds. Reproduced with permission from reference (Zhu et al., 2021).

Figure 6.

Schematic representation of the synergistic delivery of DOX, CDDP, and MTX through injectable hydrogels. Reproduced with permission from ACS 2015 (Ma et al., 2015).

Figure 7.

H&E staining of cranial bone defect sections in the control group (A–C) and in the PECE/Collagen/n-HA hydrogel composite treatment group (D–F). The treatment group had no significant foreign body reaction and inflammatory action. Two groups permitted bone ingrowth, but the treatment group demonstrated more rapid and successful osteogenesis at the defect site than that of the control group. The following abbreviations are used: BM: bone marrow; HB: host bone; IM: implanted material; NB: new bone; VT: vascular tissue; O: osteoid. The red (arrows) represent the new osteoid that formed at the HB edge. The blue (dotted line) denotes the junction of the HB with the defect site (Fu et al., 2012).

Figure 8.

Schematic illustration of hydrogel-assisted bone regeneration (Bai et al., 2018).