Electrospun Materials and Polymeric Membranes Research Group (EMPMRG), National Textile University, Faisalabad 37610, Pakistan.
Department of Applied Sciences, National Textile University, Faisalabad 37610, Pakistan.
Mater Sci Eng C Mater Biol Appl. 2019 Apr;97:966-977. doi: 10.1016/j.msec.2018.12.105. Epub 2018 Dec 29.
Cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases which had been encountering the human beings since last several decades. In 2018, according to national cancer institute, about 609,640 people are expected to die from cancer and about 1,735,350 new patients are expected to be diagnosed with this lethal disease. Nanotechnology has played a significant role in almost every field of life including medical sciences. A controlled and sustained release of drug is much desirable and beneficial when one has to deal with cancer as such drugs do also harm to normal cells. General anticancer drugs, used in chemotherapy, are associated with severe side effects due to high dosage requirements. With the help of nanotechnology, great outcomes for instance, anticancer drug loaded nanofibers, have been achieved in cancer therapy requiring less amount of drug as drug is preserved in these nanofibers for prolonged time. Electrospun nanofibers have very large surface area, controllable pore size and tunable drug release profiles which make these nanofibers promising candidates in medical field. To promote green synthesis of nanofibers, researchers have also used water as an effective solvent instead of toxic chemicals and reduced the environmental burden. This green approach of nanofibers fabrication has a good potential to be used in regenerative medicine including cancer therapy because of environmental friendly characteristics. Though, there are numerous research reports available on the application of nanofibers. To the best of our knowledge, no review paper has been reported solely on the applications of nanofibers for cancer therapy. Therefore, this review paper describes some electrospun nanofibers of pure polymer, blends and block copolymers that have been reported for successful cancer therapy.
癌症是几十年来一直困扰人类的最危险疾病之一。2018 年，根据美国国家癌症研究所的数据，约有 609640 人预计将死于癌症，约有 1735350 例新患者预计将被诊断出患有这种致命疾病。纳米技术在包括医学科学在内的几乎所有生活领域都发挥了重要作用。当涉及癌症时，人们非常希望和受益于药物的可控和持续释放，因为这些药物也会对正常细胞造成伤害。用于化疗的一般抗癌药物由于需要高剂量，因此与严重的副作用相关。借助纳米技术，例如载有抗癌药物的纳米纤维，在癌症治疗方面取得了巨大的成果，所需的药物量较少，因为药物在这些纳米纤维中可以长时间保存。电纺纳米纤维具有非常大的表面积、可控制的孔径和可调节的药物释放特性，这使它们成为医学领域有前途的候选材料。为了促进纳米纤维的绿色合成，研究人员还使用水作为有效溶剂代替有毒化学物质，减少了环境负担。这种绿色的纳米纤维制造方法具有良好的潜力，可用于再生医学，包括癌症治疗，因为它具有环保的特点。尽管已经有大量关于纳米纤维应用的研究报告，但据我们所知，尚无专门针对纳米纤维在癌症治疗中的应用的综述论文。因此，本文综述了一些已报道用于成功癌症治疗的纯聚合物、共混物和嵌段共聚物的电纺纳米纤维。
