Abstract
Cancer is one of the most widespread deadly diseases, following cardiovascular disease, worldwide. Chemotherapy is widely used in combination with surgery, hormone and radiation therapy to treat various cancers. However, chemotherapeutic drugs can cause severe side effects due to non-specific targeting, poor bioavailability, low therapeutic indices, and high dose requirements. Several drug carriers successfully overcome these issues and deliver drugs to the desired sites, reducing the side effects. Among various drug delivery systems, polysaccharide-based carriers that target only the cancer cells have been developed to overcome the toxicity of chemotherapeutics. Polysaccharides are non-toxic, biodegradable, hydrophilic biopolymers that can be easily modified chemically to improve the bioavailability and stability for delivering therapeutics into cancer tissues. Different polysaccharides, such as chitosan, alginates, cyclodextrin, pullulan, hyaluronic acid, dextran, guar gum, pectin, and cellulose, have been used in anti-cancer drug delivery systems. This review highlights the recent progress made in polysaccharides-based drug carriers in anti-cancer therapy.
Highlights
Cancer is the most prevalent deadly disease, next to cardiovascular disease, throughout the world [1]
Polysaccharide drug carriers improve the bioavailability of such small molecules, proteins, and peptides by enhancing their ability to permeate into tissues owing to their subcellular and submicron size
Effective anti-cancer agent, but its use is limited due to its toxic effect on the nervous sysIn order to reduce the harmful impact of cisplatin, it has been linked with hyaluronic acid tem
Summary
Cancer is the most prevalent deadly disease, next to cardiovascular disease, throughout the world [1]. About 19.3 million new cancer cases and nearly 10.0 million cancer deaths were reported globally in 2020. In low-income nations, nearly 25% of cancer cases are caused by hepatitis and the human papillomavirus. Conventional chemotherapy kills normal healthy cells along with cancer cells, causing severe unwanted side effects. It is necessary to develop new chemotherapeutics that target cancerous cells without affecting normal cells. In the last two decades, the polymeric drug delivery system has emerged as a key player in cancer treatment [9]. Several biocompatible polymers, including carbohydrate-based polymers, and polysaccharides are used to improve the therapeutic efficacy of the cancer drugs and reduce the side effects. Various immunological therapies and targeted drug delivery were included in cancer treatment based on carbohydrate polymers. Drug delivery systems based on specific targeting mechanisms will increase the efficacy of therapeutics [11]. We review the current research on the polysaccharide-based carriers used in drug delivery systems [12]
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