Co-crystal nanoarchitectonics as an emerging strategy in attenuating cancer: Fundamentals and applications.

Cancer ranks as the second foremost cause of death in various corners of the globe. The clinical uses of assorted anticancer therapeutics have been limited owing to the poor physicochemical attributes, pharmacokinetic performance, and lethal toxicities. Various sorts of co-crystals or nano co-crystals or co-crystals-laden nanocarriers have presented great promise in targeting cancer via improved physicochemical attributes, pharmacokinetic performance, and reduced toxicities. These systems have also demonstrated the controlled cargo release and passive targeting via enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect. In addition, regional delivery of co-crystals via inhalation and transdermal route displayed remarkable potential in targeting lung and skin cancer effectively. However, more research is required on the use of co-crystals in cancer and their commercialization. The present review mainly emphasizes co-crystals as emerging avenues in the treatment of various cancers by modulating the physicochemical and pharmacokinetic attributes of approved anticancer therapeutics. The worth of co-crystals in cancer treatment, computational paths in the co-crystals screening, diverse experimental techniques of co-crystals fabrication, and sorts of co-crystals and their noteworthy applications in targeting cancer are also discussed. Besides, the game changer approaches like nano co-crystals and co-crystals-laden nanocarriers, and co-crystals in regional delivery in cancer are also explained with reported case studies. Furthermore, regulatory directives for pharmaceutical co-crystals and their scale-up, and challenges are also highlighted with concluding remarks and future initiatives. In essence, co-crystals and nano co-crystals emerge to be a promising strategy in overwhelming cancers through improving anticancer efficacy, safety, patient compliance, and reducing the cost.

Nanoparticulate drugs and vaccines: Breakthroughs and bottlenecks of repurposing in breast cancer.

Breast cancer (BC) is a highly diagnosed and topmost cause of death in females worldwide. Drug repurposing (DR) has shown great potential against BC by overcoming major shortcomings of approved anticancer therapeutics. However, poor physicochemical properties, pharmacokinetic performance, stability, non-selectivity to tumors, and side effects are severe hurdles in repurposed drug delivery against BC. The variety of nanocarriers (NCs) has shown great promise in delivering repurposed therapeutics for effective treatment of BC via improving solubility, stability, tumor selectivity and reducing toxicity. Besides, delivering repurposed cargos via theranostic NCs can be helpful in the quick diagnosis and treatment of BC. Localized delivery of repurposed candidates through apt NCs can diminish the systemic side effects and improve anti-tumor effectiveness. However, breast tumor variability and tumor microenvironment have created several challenges to nanoparticulate delivery of repurposed cargos. This review focuses on DR as an ingenious strategy to treat BC and circumvent the drawbacks of approved anticancer therapeutics. Various nanoparticulate avenues delivering repurposed therapeutics, including non-oncology cargos and vaccines to target BC effectively, are discussed along with case studies. Moreover, clinical trial information on repurposed medications and vaccines for the treatment of BC is covered along with various obstacles in nanoparticulate drug delivery against cancer that have been so far identified. In a nutshell, DR and drug delivery of repurposed drugs via NCs appears to be a propitious approach in devastating BC.

Drug repurposing: An emerging strategy in alleviating skin cancer.

Skin cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer. Several million people are estimated to have affected with this condition worldwide. Skin cancer generally includes melanoma and non-melanoma with the former being the most dangerous. Chemotherapy has been one of the key therapeutic strategies employed in the treatment of skin cancer, especially in advanced stages of the disease. It could be also used as an adjuvant with other treatment modalities depending on the type of skin cancer. However, there are several shortfalls associated with the use of chemotherapy such as non-selectivity, tumour resistance, life-threatening toxicities, and the exorbitant cost of medicines. Furthermore, new drug discovery is a lengthy and costly process with minimal likelihood of success. Thus, drug repurposing (DR) has emerged as a new avenue where the drug approved formerly for the treatment of one disease can be used for the treatment of another disease like cancer. This approach is greatly beneficial over the de novo approach in terms of time and cost. Moreover, there is minimal risk of failure of repurposed therapeutics in clinical trials. There are a considerable number of studies that have reported on drugs repurposed for the treatment of skin cancer. Thus, the present manuscript offers a comprehensive overview of drugs that have been investigated as repurposing candidates for the efficient treatment of skin cancers mainly melanoma and its oncogenic subtypes, and non-melanoma. The prospects of repurposing phytochemicals against skin cancer are also discussed. Furthermore, repurposed drug delivery via topical route and repurposed drugs in clinical trials are briefed. Based on the findings from the reported studies discussed in this manuscript, drug repurposing emerges to be a promising approach and thus is expected to offer efficient treatment at a reasonable cost in devitalizing skin cancer.