ABSTRACT
Introduction
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major health problem worldwide. Conventional therapies covering either chemotherapy or combination therapy still have sub-optimal responses with significant adverse effects and toxicity. Moreover, tumor cells usually acquire resistance quickly for traditional approaches, limiting their use in HCC. Interest in nanomedicine due to minimal systemic toxicity and a high degree of target-specific drug-delivery have pulled the attention of health scientists in this area of therapeutics.
Area covered
The review covers the incidence and epidemiology of HCC, proposed molecular drug targets, mechanistic approach and emergence of nanomedicines including nanoparticles, lipidic nanoparticles, vesicular-based nanocarrier, virus-like particles with momentous therapeutic aspects including biocompatibility, and toxicity of nanocarriers along with conclusions and future perspective, with an efficient approach to safely cross physiological barriers to reach the target site for treating liver cancer.
Expert opinion
Remarkable outcomes have recently been observed for the therapeutic efficacy of nanocarriers with respect to a specific drug target against the treatment of HCC by existing under trial drugs.
Article highlights
The HCC is regarded as one of world’s worst cancers, with a constant rise in death rates in Asia and Central Africa.
Ablation, chemotherapy, liver transplantation, radiation, TACE, combination treatment, and drug therapy are required for HCC Ablation.
Recent chemotherapy treatment induces tumor as well as regular tissue damage which ineffectivity. New cancer therapy approaches are therefore needed urgently.
Nanotechnology is an alternative to traditional medicine and can treat patient without any side effects and is commonly referred to as nanomedicine.
A brief overview of the progress of HCC therapy utilizing different types of nanomedicines.
Due to its small size, nanomedicine is available in different sizes and its high surface area is expressed with an improvement in charge capacity.
Nanomedicine includes polymeric nanoparticles, lipidic nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, liposomes, are viable for the entrapment of drug.
The HCC attracted considerable attention to the nanomedicine.
and its progress in the context of clinical trials, several nanomedicines have been evaluated for several problems.
This box summarizes key points contained in the article.
Declaration of interest
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
Reviewer disclosures
Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.
Abbreviation
HCC= | = | Hepatocellular carcinoma, |
HBV= | = | Hepatitis B virus |
HCV= | = | Hepatitis C virus |
TACE = | = | Trans-arterial chemoembolization |
US-FDA= | = | United States Food and Drug Administration |
FDA= | = | Food and Drug Administration, |
VEGFR-1= | = | vascular endothelial growth factor receptor |
PDGFR- β= | = | platelet derived growth factor family receptor |
BRAF= | = | Raf serine/threonine kinases |
TCRS = | = | Taiwan Cancer Registration System |
NPs= | = | nanoparticles |
ASGPR= | = | Ashwell-Morell receptor or asialoglycoprotein receptor |
Gal-P123= | = | efflux transporter inhibitor Pluronic P123 |
LA= | = | Lactobionic acid |
LA-Au-DENPs= | = | dendrimer entrapped gold nanoparticles of lactobionic acid |
GPC3= | = | Heparin sulfate proteoglycan |
TfR= | = | Transferrin receptor |
DDp= | = | co-drug delivery cisplatin |
GA-R= | = | Glycyrrhetinic acid receptor |
DOX= | = | doxorubicin |
PLGA= | = | poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid |
FA= | = | Folic acid receptor |
SSTR= | = | Somatostatin receptors |
Oct-PEG-PE= | = | Octreotide-polyethylene glycol phosphatidylethanolamine |
TMX= | = | Tamoxifen |
CD44= | = | Cluster of differentiation 44 |
ROS= | = | Reactive oxygen species |
HPMA= | = | N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide |
PHIS= | = | Poly-L-hystidine |
GA= | = | Glycyrrhetinic acid |
HA= | = | Hyaluronic acid |
SP94-LD= | = | SP94-targeted PEGylated liposomal |
MNPs= | = | Magnetite nanoparticles |
VEGF= | = | Vascular endothelial |
bFGF= | = | platelet dependent growth factor and fundamental fibroblast growth factor |
Tf= | = | Aptamers transferring |
PHIS= | = | Poly-L-histidine |
PTEN= | = | Phosphatase and tensin homolog |
DEN= | = | Diethyl nitrosamine |
PDTC= | = | Pyrrolidine-dithiocarbonate |
VLPs= | = | Virus-like particle |
LNPs= | = | Lipid nanoparticles |
SLNs= | = | Solid lipidic nanoparticles |
GA= | = | Ganoderic acid |
NLCs= | = | Nano lipidic Carriers |
DOX= | = | Doxorubicin |
CUR= | = | Curcumin |