title: Therapeutic Nanoparticles as Controlled Anti-Cancer Medications.
abstract: The development of therapeutic nanoparticles (TNPs) for cancer treatment is one of the fastest growing research areas in oncology. Accumulating evidence has shown many advantages of TNPs over freely delivered chemotherapeutic drugs, such as enhanced water solubility, tumor-specific accumulation, and antitumor efficacy, while at the same time reducing non-specific tumor toxicity. However, the mechanisms behind these observations and outcomes have not been fully elucidated. Major challenges for applying TNPs in the clinic are to understand precisely how chemotherapeutic agents are released from TNPs and delivered to the targeted tumor tissues/cells, and how the TNPs' biodistribution affects toxicity in major organs. This review focuses on recent exploration of these unresolved issues with comparisons between free drugs and TNPs and between targeted and non-targeted TNPs. Several well-developed TNPs with unique characteristics will be discussed. Their specific applications for the treatment of certain cancer types have shed light on the clinical use of TNPs in cancer therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute, Atlanta, GA, USA. gzchen@emory.edu.
authors.forename: G Z
authors.initials: GZ
authors.lastname: Chen