Review Article
Nanomedicine applied to translational oncology: A future perspective on cancer treatment

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Abstract

The high global incidence of cancer is associated with high rates of mortality and morbidity worldwide. By taking advantage of the properties of matter at the nanoscale, nanomedicine promises to develop innovative drugs with greater efficacy and less side effects than standard therapies. Here, we discuss both clinically available anti-cancer nanomedicines and those en route to future clinical application. The properties, therapeutic value, advantages and limitations of these nanomedicine products are highlighted, with a focus on their increased performance versus conventional molecular anticancer therapies. The main regulatory challenges toward the translation of innovative, clinically effective nanotherapeutics are discussed, with a view to improving current approaches to the clinical management of cancer. Ultimately, it becomes clear that the critical steps for clinical translation of nanotherapeutics require further interdisciplinary and international effort, where the whole stakeholder community is involved from bench to bedside.

From the Clinical Editor

Cancer is a leading cause of mortality worldwide and finding a cure remains the holy-grail for many researchers and clinicians. The advance in nanotechnology has enabled novel strategies to develop in terms of cancer diagnosis and therapy. In this concise review article, the authors described current capabilities in this field and outlined comparisons with existing drugs. The difficulties in bringing new drugs to the clinics were also discussed.

Graphical abstract

This review focuses on nanomedicine aimed at increasing the efficacy of currently available cancer therapies.

The relevant challenges to nanomedicine translation are presented and lie in the real difficulty to reach an advanced multidisciplinary forum for discussion, where not only experts from several field from academia, but also clinicians and professionals from the pharmaceutical/healthcare industries and regulatory bodies can take their part in sharing ideas, issues and unmet needs. The principal challenges that all stakeholders are facing are complex, and will be described in this review with a particular emphasis on scientific and regulatory issues.

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Section snippets

Design of nanomaterials for cancer therapeutic applications

The medical use of manufactured nanomaterials in oncology is gaining ground rapidly, with various nano-based products already on the market and many progressing through different stages of the drug discovery pipeline. Nanomaterials designed for cancer therapy can be as diverse as micelles, liposomes, dendrimers, inorganic nanoparticles, carbon nanoparticles and nanotubes, nanodiamonds, nanoemulsions, viral nanocarriers, polymeric or peptide nanoparticles, and solid lipid nanoparticles; they can

Clinically approved nanoparticles for cancer therapy

Among the various types of nanomaterials developed for nanomedicine applications, liposomes and polymer-based nanoformulations constitute the majority of the nanotherapeutics approved for intravenous administration during cancer treatment.57, 58, 59 Liposomes are vesicles with a hydrophilic (polar) cavity surrounded by a bi-layer of amphiphilic phospholipids, whose hydrophobic lipid tails and hydrophilic phosphate heads drive self-assembly in water.60 Polymeric nanoparticles are another major

Nanoparticles under clinical evaluation for cancer therapy

A number of cancer nanodrugs are currently in clinical trials, demonstrating both the strong potential of this field and the emerging interest in it. In this section, we describe a few examples of nanomaterials under clinical evaluation for cancer treatment, while a more extensive, though not comprehensive, list is provided in Table 2. Unless specified otherwise, information on clinical-trial phase and status comes from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Clinical Trials Web site (//clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/home

Challenges limiting clinical translation of cancer nanotherapeutics

Despite the huge investments and the astonishing number of scientific publications regarding “nanotechnology for cancer treatment” in the last 10 years (Figure 5), the translation of oncological nanomedicines into clinical practice has been slow compared to that for small-molecule drugs.140, 141 In fact, the majority of nanomaterials designed for clinical use are barely at the stage of in vivo evaluation, and even fewer have reached clinical trials. On the scientific and technological side,

Conclusions

Nanotechnology is a key enabling technology, whose application in medicine ranges from diagnostics to therapeutics to medical devices. As such, it has the potential to provide major health benefits for all. The medical use of manufactured nanomaterials is currently in its infancy, with some anticancer nanomedicines already on the market, but most nanodrugs are still in progress through the different stages of the pharmaceutical pipeline. As is often the case for emerging technologies,

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    Funded: This work was partially supported by the EU FP7 NAMDIATREAM project (Contract No. 246479), NANoREG project (Contract No. 310584), MULTIFUN project (Contract No. 262943) and Science Foundation Ireland (Grant No. SFI/12/RC/2278).

    Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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