Chemotherapy Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Chemotherapy, including details on cancer treatment, side effects, drugs.

Brain cancer diagnosis and therapy with nanoplatforms.

Koo YE, Reddy GR, Bhojani M, Schneider R, Philbert MA, Rehemtulla A, Ross BD, Kopelman R

Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Treatment of brain cancer remains a challenge despite recent improvements in surgery and multimodal adjuvant therapy. Drug therapies of brain cancer have been particularly inefficient, due to the blood-brain barrier and the non-specificity of the potentially toxic drugs. The nanoparticle has emerged as a potential vector for brain delivery, able to overcome the problems of current strategies. Moreover, multi-functionality can be engineered into a single nanoplatform so that it can provide tumor-specific detection, treatment, and follow-up monitoring. Such multitasking is not possible with conventional technologies. This review describes recent advances in nanoparticle-based detection and therapy of brain cancer. The advantages of nanoparticle-based delivery and the types of nanoparticle systems under investigation are described, as well as their applications.

Published 4 December 2006 in Adv Drug Deliv Rev, 58(14): 1556-77.
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