title: New strategies to deliver anticancer drugs to brain tumors.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Malignant brain tumors are among the most challenging to treat and at present there are no uniformly successful treatment strategies. Standard treatment regimens consist of maximal surgical resection followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The limited survival advantage attributed to chemotherapy is partially due to low CNS penetration of antineoplastic agents across the blood-brain barrier (BBB).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this paper is to review recent approaches to delivering anticancer drugs into primary brain tumors.
  
  
  METHODS
  Both preclinical and clinical strategies to circumvent the BBB are considered that include chemical modification and colloidal carriers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Analysis of the available data indicates that new approaches may be useful for CNS delivery, yet an appreciation of pharmacokinetic issues and improved knowledge of tumor biology will be needed to affect significantly drug delivery to the target site.
authors.affiliation: Università degli Studi di Bari, Dipartimento Farmaco Chimico, Italy.
authors.forename: Valentino
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Laquintana
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Trapani
authors.forename: Nunzio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Denora
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gallo
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Trapani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001812:Blood-Brain Barrier; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents