Abstract :Drug developers recruit and combine principles, procedures and strategies from chemistry, pharmacology, nanotechnology and biotechnology, focusing on the generation of functional vehicles as nano-carriers of drugs for improved stability and enhanced intracellular delivery.
The nanostructured drugs for cancer treatment that have so far reached the oncology market largely rely on passive targeting (p.e.: Abraxane, Doxil, Daunoxome, Oncaspar, DepoCyt), meaning that they are not empowered by specific mechanisms to recognize specific cell types or tissues. Preferential but still passive accumulation into tumor tissues is thus favored; in addition the increase in circulation time is promoted by the nanoscale size of the drug-vehicle conjugate contributing to the enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR) [1].