Chapter 32 - The Magnetic Nanobased Strategies to Overcome Drug Resistance in Breast Cancer Therapy

Abstract

In cancer, multidrug resistance occurs due to alteration of drug targets, expression of drug efflux pump, and detoxification mechanisms, leading to reduced apoptosis and increased ability to repair DNA damage. The conventional treatment shows some limits, such as toxicity, lack of specificity, poor drug accumulation in tumor tissue, and severe side effects. Furthermore, the blood–brain barrier has a key role in limiting strategies of therapy, because anticancer drugs have little or no solubility to pass through this barrier. Therefore, alternative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches are needed in the era of novel drugs. Nanotechnology is considered the epitome of the emerging technologies that will have an important role in biomedical and pharmaceuticals industry. Governments and industry have spent millions of dollars on the research and development of nanobased biomaterials. After long and intensive studies, nanobased biomaterials have been used in various applications because of their size, shape, and special chemical structures that may interact easily with tissue and cells. In the last decades nanobased biomaterials have been used in molecular imaging, targeted delivery, drug screening, diagnosis, and tissue engineering. This chapter focuses on engineered magnetic nanoparticles and new biomedical approaches to overcome drug resistance in breast cancer therapy and discusses the proposed mechanisms of action.