The application of carbon nanotubes in target drug delivery systems for cancer therapies

TLDR

Chemotherapy remains a mainstay of cancer treatment, yet its lack of selectivity often causes systemic toxicity and limits efficacy, underscoring the need for highly selective targeted therapies. This review examines the use of carbon nanotubes as target carriers in drug delivery systems for cancer therapies, aiming to construct effective targeted drug delivery platforms. Targeted delivery requires carriers that exhibit intrinsic targeting, strong drug adsorption, and site‑specific release, and carbon nanotubes with appropriate surface modifications satisfy these three prerequisites.

Abstract

Abstract Among all cancer treatment options, chemotherapy continues to play a major role in killing free cancer cells and removing undetectable tumor micro-focuses. Although chemotherapies are successful in some cases, systemic toxicity may develop at the same time due to lack of selectivity of the drugs for cancer tissues and cells, which often leads to the failure of chemotherapies. Obviously, the therapeutic effects will be revolutionarily improved if human can deliver the anticancer drugs with high selectivity to cancer cells or cancer tissues. This selective delivery of the drugs has been called target treatment. To realize target treatment, the first step of the strategies is to build up effective target drug delivery systems. Generally speaking, such a system is often made up of the carriers and drugs, of which the carriers play the roles of target delivery. An ideal carrier for target drug delivery systems should have three pre-requisites for their functions: (1) they themselves have target effects; (2) they have sufficiently strong adsorptive effects for anticancer drugs to ensure they can transport the drugs to the effect-relevant sites; and (3) they can release the drugs from them in the effect-relevant sites, and only in this way can the treatment effects develop. The transporting capabilities of carbon nanotubes combined with appropriate surface modifications and their unique physicochemical properties show great promise to meet the three pre-requisites. Here, we review the progress in the study on the application of carbon nanotubes as target carriers in drug delivery systems for cancer therapies.