Strategic combinatorial delivery of tranilast and paclitaxel using differently functionalized PLGA nanoparticles for enhanced penetration and accumulation in Breast tumor

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer diagnosed in women. In the year 2020, 2.3 million new cases were diagnosed with 685,000 deaths, worldwide. Chemotherapy is generally utilized for the advanced and metastatic cancer. However, chemotherapy suffers from limitation such as tumor relapse, low tumor-free survival, and over-all survival. Nanocarriers are commonly employed to deliver the cytotoxic drugs to the tumors. However, the clinical success of such delivery systems is negligible. Nanocarrier-mediated drug delivery suffers from the limitations of poor tumor penetration and rapid clearance from circulation. Hence, new strategies must be studied for better drug-delivery to the tumors. Recently, Immune cells-hitchhiking has shown huge potential in delivering cytotoxic drugs specifically to the tumor. Here, we hypothesize a strategy which is a thoughtful combination of vascular normalization process and in situ hitchhiking of nanocarriers on macrophages for improved drug delivery to the breast tumors. This strategy will improve tumor drug delivery and prevent metastasis at the same time.