Research Progress on the Nano-Delivery Systems of Antitumor Drugs

To date, chemotherapy, the main treatment for malignant tumors, still fails to provide ideal therapeutic efficacy, which is deeply rooted in various physiological barriers, either temporal or spatial, to the delivering of anticancer drugs to solid tumor sites during chemotherapy. In the meantime, the therapeutic efficacy of anticancer drugs is affected by inherent cancer characteristics, drug transport, cellular uptake and other complex interactions. Recently, advances have been constantly achieved on nanoscale drug delivery systems (NDDSs) for anticancer drug delivery, driven by their excellent stability and effectiveness in improving water solubility of anticancer drugs, prolonging systemic circulation time, reducing side effects and improving anticancer effects. This paper presents an overview of the current research status and challenges in applying NDDSs to anticancer drug delivery.