title: Combination antitumor therapy with targeted dual-nanomedicines.
abstract: Combination therapy is one of the important treatment strategies for cancer at present. However, the outcome of current combination therapy based on the co-administration of conventional dosage forms is suboptimal, due to the short half-lives of chemodrugs, their deficient tumor selectivity and so forth. Nanotechnology-based targeted delivery systems show great promise in addressing the associated problems and providing superior therapeutic benefits. In this review, we focus on the combination of therapeutic strategies between different nanomedicines or drug-loaded nanocarriers, rather than the co-delivery of different drugs via a single nanocarrier. We introduce the general concept of various targeting strategies of nanomedicines, present the principles of combination antitumor therapy with dual-nanomedicines, analyze their advantages and limitations compared with co-delivery strategies, and overview the recent advances of combination therapy based on targeted nanomedicines. Finally, we reviewed the challenges and future perspectives regarding the selection of therapeutic agents, targeting efficiency and the gap between the preclinical and clinical outcome.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Wenbing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China; State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyou
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China; State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Ge
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China; State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Tongzhou
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
authors.forename: Xueqing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Molecular Pharmaceutics and New Drug Delivery Systems, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China; State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Beijing 100191, China. Electronic address: zqdodo@bjmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000737:chemistry*; D004338:Drug Combinations; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000379:methods*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D004337:Drug Carriers; D004338:Drug Combinations
keywords: Antitumor; Cancer stem cells; Combination therapy; Dual-nanomedicines; Targeted nanomedicines; Tumor microenvironment