Title:Targeted Nanosystems to Prostate Cancer
Volume: 22
Issue: 39
Author(s): Luiz Cláudio Rodrigues Pereira da Silva, Flávia Almada do Carmoa, Luiz Eurico Nasciutti, Patrícia Zancan, Plínio Cunha Sathler and Lucio Mendes Cabral
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Nanotechnology, prostate, tumor, drug delivery, active targeting, cancer therapy, cancer diagnostics
Abstract: Prostate cancer remains an increasingly common malignancy worldwide. Many
advances in drug development have been achieved for the conventional treatments; however,
chemotherapeutic agents are distributed nonspecifically in the body where they affect both
prostate cancer and healthy cells. Limited dose achievable within the prostate tumor and
suboptimal treatment due to excessive toxicities reveal the importance of the development of
more specific mechanisms and ways of drug targeting to prostate tumor. In this context,
nanotechnology, molecular biology and biochemistry have been applied in the pharmaceutical
area for development of new targeted drug delivery nanosystems in order to improve its
pharmacokinetic profile, raise the effectiveness of treatment; reduce side effects due to the
preferential accumulation in prostate cancer cells, causing low concentrations in healthy
tissues; and/or increase the drug chemical stability for improving the prostate cancer therapeutic.
Thus, in this review, we will discuss the molecular and biochemical basis of prostate
cancer as well as the advantages and disadvantages of conventional clinical treatments, different types and basic
characteristics of nanosystems; how these systems can be targeted to prostate cancer, show successful patent
examples of prostate cancer targeted nanosystems and present perspectives for the next 10-20 years in this area.
