Current Applications of Nanoemulsions in Cancer Therapeutics

Abstract

Nanoemulsions are pharmaceutical formulations composed of particles within a nanometer range. They possess the capacity to encapsulate drugs that are poorly water soluble due to their hydrophobic core nature. Additionally, they are also composed of safe gradient excipients, which makes them a stable and safe option to deliver drugs. Cancer therapy has been an issue for several decades. Drugs developed to treat this disease are not always successful or end up failing, mainly due to low solubility, multidrug resistance (MDR), and unspecific toxicity. Nanoemulsions might be the solution to achieve efficient and safe tumor treatment. These formulations not only solve water-solubility problems but also provide specific targeting to cancer cells and might even be designed to overcome MDR. Nanoemulsions can be modified using ligands of different natures to target components present in tumor cells surface or to escape MDR mechanisms. Multifunctional nanoemulsions are being studied by a wide variety of researchers in different research areas mainly for the treatment of different types of cancer. All of these studies demonstrate that nanoemulsions are efficiently taken by the tumoral cells, reduce tumor growth, eliminate toxicity to healthy cells, and decrease migration of cancer cells to other organs.

New Nanotechnologies for the Treatment and Repair of Skin Burns Infections

“…NEs constute a heterogeneous system of two immiscible liquids stabilized by a suitable surfactant [32,[46][47][48][49][50][51]. The droplet diameter is usually between 20 and 400 nm and the limit must be less than 500 nm [52].…”

“…NE are a transparent and isotropic dispersion that can be classified in three categories: water-in-oil (w/o) dispersions, oil-in-water (o/w) dispersions and bicontinuous/multiple emulsion [52]. NEs have many advantages as they are nontoxic and non-irritant [32,46,53], can be integrated into various types of pharmaceutical forms (foams, liquids, creams, and sprays) [54], have long-term physical stability which reduces phenomena like creaming, sedimentation, and coalescence [55], can be used for parenteral and non-parenteral routes as skin and mucosa [54], allow the solubilization of hydrophilic and hydrophobic active ingredients [52], and frequently the Brownian motion is enough to compensate the kinetic instability caused by viscosity or gravity [55]. Some disadvantages may however be pointed out because the stability of NEs is also dependent on the surface electrical charge, while the size of of NEs can increase by a phenomenon called Ostwald ripening [54].…”

An Updated Overview on Nanonutraceuticals: Focus on Nanoprebiotics and Nanoprobiotics

“…The progress in pharmaceutical nanotechnology has led to a new class of products, the so-called nanopharmaceuticals [20,21], defined as pharmaceutical drug molecules formulated in nanomaterials. Different types of nanoformulations are being exploited for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, infectious diseases, and others [22][23][24][25][26]. Besides, nanomaterials are also succeeding in offering new advanced tools for imaging and diagnosis [27] which, combined with therapy, have been proposed as nanotheranostics.…”

Anticancer activity of food grade nanoemulsions on hepatic cancer cells: a comparative study

“…However, the cell viability results indicated that formulated NEs inhibited cell growth in dose dependent manner and found more effective than their respective oils. This signi cant decline in cancer cell viability may be attributed to the capability of NE to easily invade into the cell to induce cell death (Sánchez-López et al 2019).…”

“…From several decades, cancer therapy has been an issue worldwide. Developed drugs to treat cancer are not always successful due to unspeci ed toxicity, low solubility and multidrug resistance (Sánchez-López et al 2019). Liver cancer, with less than 9% ve year survival worldwide, is mainly treated by chemotherapy.…”