Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems for effective cancer treatment: Mechanisms and applications

Nanoparticle-based drug delivery platforms afford great promise as innovative tools for cancer therapy, as they can offer improved drug solubility, stability, pharmacokinetics, and tumor-specific targeting ability. With such recent developments in the field and advances in nanomedicine, there are still barriers preventing clinical translation, safety, or toxicity, and approval from guidelines set forth by regulatory bodies (such as the FDA). Accordingly, this review aims to provide a thorough and up-to-date perspective on the design principles, modes of therapy, and translational applications of liposomal, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and hybrid nanostructures. Focus is placed on surface functionalization strategies, stimuli-responsiveness, and selective targeting features of all platforms that will help enable the precision and efficacy of some anticancer therapeutics. Additionally, upon detailed organization of their systems, each nanoparticle system is compared to describe the advantages and disadvantages they all purportedly encode. By examining this aspect of hybrid systems, we illustrate how nanoparticle designers can engender multifunctionality by marrying the fundamental properties of disparate materials. Applications are included in this review of recently developed FDA-approved formulations like Doxil®, Abraxane®, and Onivyde® to bare how these tools have successfully gone through translation, and advocate research into other nanoparticle designs for future implementations. Critical evaluation is also given to toxicity and ethics testing, the road to scale-up manufacturing, and regulatory challenges that safety and quality regulation demands to get through, to offer a forward-thinking discussion on the already established clinical implementation path. Our work strives to be different by incorporating more recent technological advances with other more translational-based publications and thereby, providing a practical road map for researchers and developers, looking to effectuate side-by-side democracy between nanotechnology and the field of clinical oncology. • The biomedical applications of different inorganic and organic nanoparticles were discussed. • The role of smart nanoparticles in nanomedicine and cancer treatment were highlighted. • Clinical applications of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems were reviewed and discussed. • Future perspectives of nanoparticle-based systems have been drawn.