Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a prevalent disease worldwide, and patients at late stages of CRC often suffer from a high mortality rate after surgery. Adjuvant chemotherapeutics (ACs) have been extensively developed to improve the survival rate of such patients, but conventionally formulated ACs inevitably distribute toxic chemotherapeutic drugs to healthy organs and thus often trigger severe side effects. CRC cells may also develop drug resistance following repeat dosing of conventional ACs, limiting their effectiveness. Given these limitations, researchers have sought to use targeted drug delivery systems (DDSs), specifically the nanotechnology-based DDSs, to deliver the ACs. As lipid-based nanoplatforms have shown the potential to improve the efficacy and safety of various cytotoxic drugs (such as paclitaxel and vincristine) in the clinical treatment of gastric cancer and leukemia, the preclinical progress of lipid-based nanoplatforms has attracted increasing interest. The lipid-based nanoplatforms might be the most promising DDSs to succeed in entering a clinical trial for CRC treatment. This review will briefly examine the history of preclinical research on lipid-based nanoplatforms, summarize the current progress, and discuss the challenges and prospects of using such approaches in the treatment of CRC.
Highlights
Colorectal cancer (CRC), a malignant neoplasm that starts in the colon or rectum, is one of the most common forms of gastroenteric cancer worldwide [1,2]
They take advantage of both polymeric cores and liposomes: The polymeric core acts as a support that provides enhanced mechanical stability, controllable morphology, and a narrowed size variation; the poly-lactic-coglycolic acid (PLGA) or poly-lactic acid (PLA) polymers largely increase the surface-area-to-volume ratio of the cores to improve the controlled release ability of the nanoparticles; the lipid envelope enhances the biocompatibility, prolongs the circulation time, and prevents drug leakage; and the lipid-enveloped shell facilitates surface modification, including targeted modification and hydrophilic modification, which can be functionalized to maximize the delivery/co-delivery capability
Mansoori et al developed an hyaluronic acid (HA)-modified liposome formulation that encapsulated 5-FU (5-FU-lipo-HA) with an average size of 144 ± 77 nm [75]. When this formulation was applied to a CD44-expressing CRC cell line (HT29) versus a non-CD44 expressing hepatoma cell line, the results revealed that 5-FU-lipo-HA exhibited optimal cell uptake and release of 5-FU into HT29 cells, but only minimal cell uptake of 5-fluorouracil into the hepatoma cells [75,154]
Summary
Colorectal cancer (CRC), a malignant neoplasm that starts in the colon or rectum, is one of the most common forms of gastroenteric cancer worldwide [1,2]. The survival rate of early-stage CRC patients is relatively high (above 50%, stages 0 to II-B), those diagnosed in advanced stages (for example stages IIIB–IVB) exhibit an extremely low survival rate (as low as 5%) even after surgical resection [15,16]. For this reason, adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) is needed to improve the life expectancy of patients diagnosed in advanced stages [17,18,19,20].
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