Tan Mei Lin, Choong Peter F M, Dass Crispin R
Department of Orthopaedics and Surgery, University of Melbourne, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
J Pharm Pharmacol. 2009 Feb;61(2):131-42. doi: 10.1211/jpp/61.02.0001.
This review sheds insight into an increasingly popular polymer that has been widely explored as a potential drug delivery system. The abundant, biodegradable and biocompatible polysaccharide chitosan, with many other favourable properties, has been favoured as a drug delivery system for the purposes of encapsulating and delivery of doxorubicin with reduced side-effects.
Doxorubicin is frequently used as a frontline chemotherapeutic agent against a variety of cancers. It has largely been able to demonstrate anti-tumour effects, though there are major shortfalls of doxorubicin, which include serious side-effects such as cardiomyopathy and myelosuppression, and also an ever-present danger of extravasation during drug administration. In view of this, drug delivery systems are currently being explored as alternative methods of drug delivery in a bid to more effectively direct doxorubicin to the specific lesion site and reduce its systemic side-effects. Liposomes and dendrimers have been tested as potential carriers for doxorubicin; however they are not the focus of this review.
Recent advancements in doxorubicin and chitosan technology have shown some preliminary though promising results for cancer therapy.
本综述深入探讨了一种日益流行的聚合物，该聚合物作为一种潜在的药物递送系统已得到广泛研究。丰富、可生物降解且具有生物相容性的多糖壳聚糖，具备许多其他有利特性，已被视作一种药物递送系统，用于包封和递送阿霉素，以减少副作用。
阿霉素常被用作治疗多种癌症的一线化疗药物。尽管它在很大程度上能够展现出抗肿瘤效果，但阿霉素存在重大缺陷，包括诸如心肌病和骨髓抑制等严重副作用，以及在给药过程中始终存在的外渗风险。鉴于此，目前正在探索药物递送系统作为替代给药方法，以期更有效地将阿霉素导向特定病变部位并减少其全身副作用。脂质体和树枝状大分子已被测试作为阿霉素的潜在载体；然而，它们并非本综述的重点。
阿霉素和壳聚糖技术的最新进展对癌症治疗已显示出一些初步但颇具前景的结果。
