What is tumor targeted drug delivery?
In general, a tumor-targeting drug delivery system (DDS) consists of a tumor recognition moiety and a cytotoxic agent connected directly or through a suitable linker to form a conjugate (4). The tumor-targeting DDS should be systemically nontoxic.
What is meant by targeted drug delivery?
Targeted drug delivery is a type of drug delivery system in which the medication is transported or concentrated selectively at the site of action to localize the interaction of drug with diseased site and to avoid the harmful effects to healthy tissue due to drug interactions.
How are drugs used to target tumor cells during chemotherapy?
How targeted therapy works. Targeted therapy targets the molecules that send signals that tell cancer cells to grow or divide. By targeting these molecules, the drugs block their signals and stop the growth and spread of cancer cells while harming normal cells as little as possible.
What is meant by targeted cancer therapy?
Targeted cancer therapies are drugs or other substances that block the growth and spread of cancer by interfering with specific molecules (“molecular targets”) that are involved in the growth, progression, and spread of cancer.
What is active tumor targeting?
Active targeting. In active targeting, targeting ligands are attached at the surface of the nanocarrier (Fig. 1B) for binding to appropriate receptors expressed at the target site (Fig. 4B). The ligand is chosen to bind to a receptor overexpressed by tumor cells or tumor vasculature and not expressed by normal cells.
Who originated concept of targeted drug delivery?
Background: More than a century ago, Paul Ehrlich proposed the idea of a drug working as a “magic bullet” that selectively eliminates diseased cells without harming the surrounding normal cells. Since then, much progress has been made in this field to broaden the scope for targeted delivery of drugs.
What are the reasons for drug targeting?
Targeted drug delivery to solid tumors is a very active research area, focusing mainly on improved drug formulation and associated best delivery methods/devices. Drug-targeting has the potential to greatly improve drug-delivery efficacy, reduce side effects, and lower the treatment costs.
What is the drug used in chemotherapy?
These types of drugs are cell-cycle non-specific. There are several types of alkylating agents used in chemotherapy treatments: Mustard gas derivatives: Mechlorethamine, Cyclophosphamide, Chlorambucil, Melphalan, and Ifosfamide. Ethylenimines: Thiotepa and Hexamethylmelamine.
How does target therapy work?
Targeted therapy is a cancer treatment that uses drugs to target specific genes and proteins that are involved in the growth and survival of cancer cells. Targeted therapy can affect the tissue environment that helps a cancer grow and survive or it can target cells related to cancer growth, like blood vessel cells.
What are the characteristics of targeted cancer therapy?
Targeted therapy. Targeted therapy does its work by using drugs that are designed to seek out features unique to specific cancer cells or ones that influence their behavior. These characteristics may include enzymes, proteins or gene mutations that may be driving the cancer’s growth.
Why is targeted therapy used?
How are tumor cells targeted in chemotherapeutic drug delivery?
Overall, the majority of the tumor targeting drug delivery strategies for chemotherapeutic delivery focus on targeting tumor cells and may result in eradication of only a specific subset of tumor cells. Importantly, tumor supportive cells and tumor stem cells are left unaffected.
Why are targeted therapies less toxic than traditional chemotherapy?
Scientists had expected that targeted cancer therapies would be less toxic than traditional chemotherapy drugs because cancer cells are more dependent on the targets than are normal cells. However, targeted cancer therapies can have substantial side effects.
How are targeted therapies used to treat breast cancer?
For example, the targeted therapy trastuzumab (Herceptin®) has been used in combination with docetaxel, a traditional chemotherapy drug, to treat women with metastatic breast cancer that overexpresses the protein HER2/neu.
How is passive targeting used in cancer treatment?
Passive targeting is one of the main strategies to guide drug delivery systems to cancer cells making use of the enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR) [ 11 ]. This phenomenon is based on newly formed leaky vessels in tumor areas (permeability) with decreased lymphatic drainage resulting in an increased retention [ 12 ].