Recent trends in the design of anticancer polymer prodrug nanocarriers

Nanocarriers based on polymers have attracted much attention to perform drug delivery, especially in cancer therapy. Although significant advances have been reported, important obstacles still remain with the use of encapsulated anticancer drugs in polymer nanoparticles (e.g., ‘burst release’, poor drug loading, low miscibility of certain drugs with the polymer matrix). To solve these issues, synthetic strategies orientated toward the prodrug approach, whereby the drug is covalently linked to the polymer scaffold, have been investigated and are detailed in the present review. It will focus on recent synthetic strategies to achieve drug–polymer conjugate nanoassemblies as well as their biological evaluations.