Abstract and Introduction
Abstract
The major obstacle in treating cancer depends on the low therapeutic index of most anticancer drugs. The lack of specificity, coupled with the large volumes of distribution, translates into a nonpreferential distribution of anticancer drugs to the tumor. Accordingly, the dose of the anticancer drug that is achievable within tumor is limited, resulting in suboptimal treatment and unwanted toxicity. Nanoparticles applied as drug-delivery systems are submicron-sized (3–200 nm) particles, that can enhance the selectivity of the active drug to cancer cells through a change of its pharmacokinetic profile, while avoiding toxicity in normal cells. This review will discuss the current uses of nanodrugs in hematology, with a focus on the most promising nanoparticles in development for the treatment of hematologic tumors.
Introduction
Over the last 20 years, there has been significant progress in the treatment of cancer, but there is still no definitive cure for most types of human cancer. One of the biggest problems in curing cancer is that most chemotherapeutic drugs lack specificity towards cancer cells. At present, most of the available anticancer drugs possess high dosage-associated toxicity, nontargeted accumulation, fast elimination, poor solubility and a short in vivo half-life. One strategy to circumvent this problem is to deliver the chemotherapeutic agents specifically to the tumor tissues through the use of innovative drug-delivery systems or drug conjugates.[1] The possibility of designing valuable delivery systems, that could minimize toxicity and assist in the controlled and sustained release of the therapeutic molecules, has had a great impact in the clinical application of chemotherapy.
Encapsulation of the drug in the core of nanoparticles protects it from the external environment, increasing the surface area. This also helps to increase its blood circulation time and to attain the optimum therapeutic concentration of the drug at the target site, as well as to decrease its accumulation in nontargeted regions through surface modification with biocompatible and biodegradable polymers.
Due to their unique features, nanoparticles have the potential to revolutionize therapy via personalized medicine. The potential advantages of engineered therapeutic nanoparticles are their ability to: revert the unfavorable physicochemical properties of bioactive molecules to desiderable biopharmacological profiles; improve the delivery of therapeutics across biological barriers and compartments; control the release of bioactive agents; enhance therapeutic efficacy by the selective delivery of therapeutics to biological targets; and perform theragnostic functions by combining multimodal imaging and simultaneous diagnosis and therapy in multifunctional nanoplatforms.
Moreover, a detailed understanding of the pharmacologic and toxicologic properties of these nanomaterials, coupled with a balanced and detailed evaluation of their risks and benefits to human health, are expected before their translation into clinical use. Although these materials are likely to provide a high degree of biocompatibility, their utilization in biomedicine requires controlled interactions with biomacromulecules. In order to translate successfully developed nanomedicines into clinical practice, several issues, including a favorable blood half-life and physiologic behavior with minimal off-target effects, effective clearance from the human organism and minimal toxicity to healthy tissues, should be taken into consideration.[2] Interestingly, recent trends in the use of liposomal formulations have accomplished all of the desired characteristics of successfully delivering the drug to the target sites.
It is well known that nanoparticles present a multipotent substrate for recognizing biomolecular surfaces. Merging biomacromolecules and nanoparticles could achieve many benefits. Much effort has been extended to the development of new nanomaterials and their biomedical applications,[3–6] as well as the research of targeted therapy by magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs).[7–9] This article will focus on how nanoparticles could help the hematologist in diagnosing and treating patients during his everyday clinical practice.
In fact, nanomedicine is the biomedical application of nanoscale materials for the diagnosis and therapy of diseases.[10] Nanoscale materials have been designed on the one hand to overcome the absence of specificity of the usual chemotherapeutic agents and, and on the other hand, for the early detection of the presence of precancerous and malignant lesions.[2]
Nanomedicine. 2014;9(15):2415-2428. © 2014 Future Medicine Ltd.
