Nanotherapeutics to overcome conventional cancer chemotherapy limitations.

Cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide and chemotherapy is a major therapeutic approach for the treatment which may be used alone or combined with other forms of therapy. However, conventional chemotherapy suffers lack of aqueous solubility, lack of selectivity and multidrug resistance. Nanotherapeutics is rapidly progressing aimed to solve several limitations of conventional drug delivery systems. Nonspecific target of cancer chemotherapy leads to damage rapidly proliferating normal cells and can be significantly reduced through folate and transferrin mediated nanotherapeutics which are aimed to target cancerous cells. Multidrug resistance is challenge in cancer chemotherapy which can be significantly reversed by solid lipid nanoparticles, polymeric nanoparticles, mesoporous silica nanoparticles, nanoparticulated chemosensitizer, nanoparticluated poloxamer and magnetic nanoparticles. Hydrophobic nature of chemotherapeutics leads to poor aqueous solubility and low bioavailability which can be overcome by nanocrystals, albumin based nanoparticles, liposomal formulation, polymeric micelles, cyclodextrin and chitosan based nanoparticles. This review focuses the role of nanotherapeutics to overcome lack of selectivity, multidrug resistance and lack of aqueous solubility of conventional cancer chemotherapy.

Drug-Drug/Drug-Excipient Compatibility Studies on Curcumin using Non-Thermal Methods.

PURPOSE: Curcumin is a hydrophobic polyphenol isolated from dried rhizome of turmeric. Clinical usefulness of curcumin in the treatment of cancer is limited due to poor aqueous solubility, hydrolytic degradation, metabolism, and poor oral bioavailability. To overcome these limitations, we proposed to fabricate curcumin-piperine, curcumin-quercetin and curcumin-silibinin loaded polymeric nanoformulation. However, unfavourable combinations of drug-drug and drug-excipient may result in interaction and rises the safety concern. Hence, the present study was aimed to assess the interaction of curcumin with excipients used in nanoformulations. METHODS: Isothermal stress testing method was used to assess the compatibility of drug-drug/drug-excipient. RESULTS: The combination of curcumin-piperine, curcumin-quercetin, curcumin-silibinin and the combination of other excipients with curcumin, piperine, quercetin and silibinin have not shown any significant physical and chemical instability. CONCLUSION: The study concludes that the curcumin, piperine, quercetin and silibinin is compatible with each other and with other excipients.

Modifications to the conventional nanoprecipitation technique: an approach to fabricate narrow sized polymeric nanoparticles.

PURPOSE: Nanoprecipitation is the convenient and commonly used method for the preparation of polymeric nanoparticles around 170 nm but yield particles with broad distribution, which require filtration step to produce particles with narrow distribution. Hence, the primary aim of the present study was to implement few modifications to the conventional nanoprecipitation method to reduce the mean particle size less than 150 nm and to produce particles with narrow distribution without filtration step. METHODS: Eudragit E 100 nanoparticles were prepared using modified nanoprecipitation method 1 and 2. Prepared nanoparticles were characterized for the mean particle size, surface area and uniformity. RESULTS: Eudragit E 100 nanoparticles prepared using modified nanoprecipitation method 1 has shown a mean particle size of 196 nm with surface area of 50.9 m(2)g(-1) and uniformity of 0.852 whereas, Eudragit E 100 nanoparticles prepared using modified nanoprecipitation method 2 has shown a mean particle size of 114 nm with surface area of 57.9 m(2)g(-1) and uniformity of 0.259. CONCLUSION: Modification to the conventional nanoprecipitation method (method 2) has produced mean particle size less than 150 nm and produced nanoparticles with narrow distribution without filtration step.