Abstract

Nanotechnology for the Treatment of Lung Cancer: The Future of Targeted Therapy

G Praveen Kumar, Professor & Principal, Sahasra Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Background Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate of all cancers and is the second most diagnosed cancer in both men and women, behind prostate and breast cancer, respectively. This study gives a brief account of the targeted novel systems for lung cancer. Materials and Methods Paclitaxel solution (Control) and paclitaxel nanosytem were injected via tail vein to rats at a single dose of 2mg /kg respectively. Blood samples were taken by heart puncture and the lungs were collected. The lungs were washed with saline and blotted with tissue paper and were subjected to homogenization. The drug distribution was studied and the relative drug uptake ratio was calculated. Results The nanosystem significantly increased the biological half-life of paclitaxel after intravenous injection in rat demonstrating that the nanosystem is a suitable drug delivery system for the lipophilic paclitaxel. The targeting efficiency was 5 times more for targeted nanosystem compared to paclitaxel solution. The relative targeting efficiency calculated for lungs was found that there was a significant improvement for the delivery of paclitaxel to the lungs. The high targeting efficiency value suggests that the nanosystem selectivity was good for lungs. Therefore, through encapsulation of paclitaxel in nanosystem, the volume of distribution is significantly reduced and the concentration of drug in the lungs is significantly increased, resulting in a decrease in the amount and types of non-specific toxicities and an increase in the amount of drug that can be effectively delivered to the lung tumor. Conclusion The performance of nanosystem of paclitaxel showed significant better results and therefore could be further developed into a clinically useful system for other5 drugs as well for targeting to poarticular organs.