Nanoparticle Technology in Drug Delivery
Tumors in the brain are among the most daunting illnesses that affect humanity today. Although innovators have made tremendous progress in cancer drug therapy, treating brain tumors with drugs remains a challenge, despite the availability of many antitumor drugs. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is among the significant challenges that make treating brain tumors with antitumor drugs a formidable task. The barrier prevents many substances in the circulatory from entering into the central nervous system, including many medications used in cancer treatment (Bhowmik et al., 2015). Consequently, many active antitumor drugs cannot exert their effects in the brain because they don’t reach their target site. Therefore, researchers should develop designs and technologies that can cross the BBB and deliver antitumor drugs into the brain.
Nanoparticle technology is a possible method that could help overcome this technology. The technique manipulates matter between atomic and cellular scales. Typically, the particles measure between 0 and 100nm, albeit they can be larger in some cases. Since nanoparticles cross the blood-brain barrier, they a drug delivery systems. They are noninvasive and provide a unique method of delivering drugs to the desired site of action and controlling the rate of drug release. Specifically, research should establish whether nano-capsules can incorporate nanoparticle sized antitumor drugs and deliver them to the brain to exert their effects. Besides, the study should elucidate the structural/pharmaceutical modifications for the drugs and the nano-capsules to facilitate their efficient entry into the brain. This way, the research determines the applicability of nano-capsules in drug delivery to the brain.
If applicable, nanoparticle technology has several implications in drug delivery. First, it would facilitate the entry of anticancer drugs into the brain tissue, thus improve drug therapy outcomes. The technology could also minimize the reuptake of nanoparticle drugs by the reticuloendothelial system. Moreover, it may regulate drug release and facilitate encapsulation reproduction. These potential benefits make nanoparticle technologies a critical research topic that adds value in the pharmaceutical sciences field, especially in CNS drug delivery, where drugs must cross the BBB to act.
Many anticancer drugs don’t act against brain tumors despite being active against other cancerous cells elsewhere in the body; hence, they are not viable for brain tumors drug therapy. They don’t cross the BBB. Targeted nanoparticles can transfer chemotherapeutic agents across the BBB and into the cancerous cells, making them efficient delivery vehicles. Furthermore, delivering anticancer drugs with conventional techniques makes them highly toxic and is associated with severe side effects because they are not specific to cancerous cells. Nano-capsule carriers are designed to transport active drugs comprising colloidal nanoparticles (Lombardo et al., 2019). Their small size increases the surface area to volume ratio exponentially, which facilitates the movement of drugs to the diseased tissues. Therefore, this system can also deliver anticancer drugs to the brain, and at the same time, specifically, target the affected cancer cells while the healthy cells remain unaffected. As a result, capsules that facilitate the movement of nanoparticle antitumor drugs past the BBB foster reaching the cancerous cells. Asides it also increases specific targeting of cancerous cells and protects the normal healthy cells from drugs, promote healing, and minimize side effects. Based on these observations, research that evaluates the optimal properties nanoparticles should contain to target cancer cells within the brain will add value to nanotechnology and drug delivery literature.
Lombardo, D., Kiselev, M. A., & Caccamo, M. T. (2019). Smart nanoparticles for drug delivery application: development of versatile nanocarrier platforms in biotechnology and nanomedicine. Journal of Nanomaterials, 2019.
Bhowmik, A., Khan, R., & Ghosh, M. K. (2015). Blood brain barrier: a challenge for effectual therapy of brain tumors. BioMed research international, 2015.