A review on nanoparticles based drug delivery in cancer treatment: advantages & challenges

Abstract

Nanoparticles have unique physicochemical and biological properties that make them one of the most promising candidate for targeted cancer therapy. Nanoparticle-based drug delivery has a number of advantages over conventional drug delivery methods, including smaller particle size, enhanced stability and biocompatibility with enhanced permeability and retention effect and specific targeting to the tumor sites enabling selective killing of cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells. Owing to the beneficial properties of nanoparticles, they are increasingly being used to target cancer cells using active targeting and passive targeting mechanisms for both diagnostic and therapeutic purpose of various types of cancer treatment. The present review focuses on the different types of nanoparticles used as a targeted drug delivery system for cancer treatment, highlighting their potential advantages and the challenges associated with the application of these nanoparticles based drug delivery systems with a direction towards future cancer research.