Abstract
Nanotechnology has made a significant impact on basic and clinical cancer research over the past two decades. Owing to multidisciplinary advances, cancer nanotechnology aims to address the problems in current cancer treatment paradigms, with the ultimate goal to improve treatment efficacy, increase patient survival, and decrease toxic side-effects. The potential for use of nanomedicine in cancer targeting and therapy has grown, and is now used to advance the four traditional pillars of cancer treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and the newest pillar, immunotherapy. In this review we provide an overview of notable advances of nanomedicine in improving drug delivery, radiation therapy and immunotherapy. Potential barriers in the translation of nanomedicine from bench to bedside as well as strategies to overcome these barriers are also discussed. Promising preclinical findings highlight the translational and clinical potential of integrating nanotechnology approaches into cancer care.
Highlights
Cancer is a leading cause of death globally, with 18 million cases and 9 million deaths worldwide each year (Bray et al, 2018)
Given that many of the nanoplatforms researched for combination with RT involve heavy metals, this study addresses a major concern in improving biocompatibility and natural clearance to avoid long term toxicity in cancer treatment
The level of innovation demonstrated by nanotechnology, as applied to the pillars of cancer treatment has been phenomenal in the preclinical arena
Summary
Cancer is a leading cause of death globally, with 18 million cases and 9 million deaths worldwide each year (Bray et al, 2018). Traditional cancer treatment options can be classified into distinct pillars: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy (hereon referred to as external radionuclide therapy, or ERT) and a more recently added fourth pillar; immunotherapy. Decades of concerted efforts have radically transformed the face of clinical cancer care and has identified specific weaknesses in each of these pillars that are being targeted by designer personalized therapies aimed at improving survival rates and reducing treatment side-effects. Since the first FDA approval of the liposomal doxorubicin (Doxil) in the 1990s (Grodzinski et al, 2019), nanomedicine approaches have emerged as a formidable means to improve the outcomes of traditional pillars of cancer therapy, each of which has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Surgery is by nature more invasive than other treatment options, but can be used as a frontline treatment for primary tumor masses, for example in cases of prostate cancer (Petrelli et al, 2014)
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