Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is the most widely occurring non-cutaneous cancer in women. Treatment options available for breast cancer are limited and there are a number of toxicity concerns associated with them. Therefore, nanocarrier based approaches have been explored for breast cancer treatment. Nanocarriers implemented for breast cancer treatment are nanoliposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, gold nanoparticles, dendrimers, and protein nanocages.

Objective: Objective of this review was to explore the therapeutic efficacy of various nanocarrier systems against breast cancer.

Method: Existing literature regarding nanocarrier systems for breast cancer therapy was reviewed using Pubmed and Google Scholar.

Results: Nanocarriers may show prolonged circulation time of chemotherapeutic agent with efficient breast tumor targeting. Both active and passive targeting methodologies can be explored to target breast cancer cells using different nanocarriers. Targeted nanocarriers have the capability to reduce side effects caused by various conventional formulations used to treat breast cancer.

Conclusion: Various nanocarriers listed above have shown their therapeutic potential in preclinical studies to treat breast cancer. Satisfactory clinical evaluation and scale up techniques can promote their entry into the pharmaceutical market in greater extent.

Keywords: Active targeting, breast cancer, dendrimers, nanoliposomes, nanoparticles, non-cutaneous cancer.

Graphical Abstract