Multifunctional Cargo-Free Nanomedicine for Cancer Therapy.

Abstract

Nanocarriers encapsulating multiple chemotherapeutics are a promising strategy to achieve combinational chemotherapy for cancer therapy; however, they generally use exotic new carriers without therapeutic effect, which usually suffer from carrier-related toxicity issues, as well as having to pass extensive clinical trials to be drug excipients before any clinical applications. Cargo-free nanomedicines, which are fabricated by drugs themselves without new excipients and possess nanoscale characteristics to realize favorable pharmacokinetics and intracellular delivery, have been rapidly developed and drawn much attention to cancer treatment. Herein, we discuss recent advances of cargo-free nanomedicines for cancer treatment. After a brief introduction to the major types of carrier-free nanomedicine, some representative applications of these cargo-free nanomedicines are discussed, including combination therapy, immunotherapy, as well as self-monitoring of drug release. More importantly, this review draws a brief conclusion and discusses the future challenges of cargo-free nanomedicines from our perspective.

• Authors: Ying Wang, Pengfei Yang, Xinrui Zhao, Di Gao, Na Sun, Zhongmin Tian, Tianyou Ma, Zhe Yang
• Journal: International journal of molecular sciences (Int J Mol Sci) Vol. 19 Issue 10 (Sep 28 2018) ISSN: 1422-0067 [Electronic] Switzerland
• PMID: 30274177 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Review)

Chemical References

• Excipients

Topics

• Drug Delivery Systems
• Drug Liberation
• Excipients (chemistry)
• Humans
• Immunotherapy
• Nanomedicine
• Neoplasms (drug therapy)