Polymeric Nanoparticles in Cancer Chemotherapy: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Chemotherapy is a common treatment technique that uses chemical drugs to kill cancer cells. This technique affects normal healthy tissues being unspecific and has toxic adverse effects. Nowadays, nanotechnology applications in cancer chemotherapy have helped to solve the uncontrolled problems involving distribution of medicine particles and other side effects. Nanoparticles (NPs) can offer significant advantages over conventional drug delivery to have magnificent properties such as controlled mode of action, various methods of administration, and the ability to transport both organic/inorganic drug particles. Special ligands containing polymeric NPs preferentially hit the tumour site because of their chemical affinity to malignant tissues. This article, reviews the fabrication, characterization, and applications of NPs being used in chemotherapy. Furthermore, different forms of polymeric and especially polymeric chemotherapy were also explored and discussed to understand better the effects of NPs on cancer chemotherapy.

Keywords: Cancer therapy; Chemotherapy; Drug delivery; Magnetic nanoparticles; Polymeric nanoparticles.

Fig. 1:

Morphology of some biodegradable Nano polymers (23,24) Various biodegradable polymers have been approved with zero toxicity and good pharmacokinetics (25,26). However, there are undoubtedly toxicities (27,28)

Fig. 2:

The types of Nano based biodegradable natural polymers (27,28, 32)

Fig. 3:

The various type of multifunctional nanocarriers for cancer therapy include diagnostics, imaging, reporter molecules, humoral marker, targeting molecules, therapeutic radionuclide, CTX drugs delivery (32,38, 48)

Fig. 4:

Schematic showing various techniques for the preparation of PNPs (55,56, 58)

Fig. 5:

The representation of different polymers being used as carriers of anticancer drugs to the target tissue (70,74)

Fig. 6:

Co-delivery system of PNPs drug loading (81)

Fig. 7:

A general schematic showing administration of different coating polymers being used as Polydopamine nanocarriers (86)