NANOPARTICLE-BASED DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS FOR TARGETED CANCER THERAPY: CYTOTOXICITY, RECENT ADVANCES, AND CHALLENGES
Abstract
Cancer is still one of the top causes of death in the world and traditional cancer treatments have several drawbacks, including poor targeting, systemic toxicity, and multidrug resistance. The development of the drug delivery systems based on nanoparticles has been emerged as an encouraging tool for improvement of targeted cancer treatment via high-speed drug delivery, controlled release, and selective targeting of tumor. In the present study, the physicochemical and cytotoxic properties of ZnO-NPs are assessed and their progress, application, and potential problems in cancer treatment are
discussed. The secondary data analysis was performed on a publicly available dataset on zinc oxide nanoparticles cytotoxicity from Kaggle. Microsoft Excel and Google sheets were used to analyse different variables such as nanoparticle Core size, hydrodynamic diameter, surface charge, dosage concentration, toxicity classification, and cell viability. To explore the correlation between the properties of the nanoparticles and biological responses, descriptive and comparative analyses were conducted. Analysis showed that the size, concentration, and surface charge of the nanoparticles had
significant effects on cytotoxicity and cell viability. Smaller nanoparticles had greater biological activity and increased cytotoxic activity, stemming from the fact that they interacted and penetrated cells better. A dose dependent toxicity pattern was observed, with the increase in the concentration of nanoparticles, the cell viability decreased. The cancer cell lines were found to be more susceptible to the exposure of nanoparticles than the normal cells, suggesting the use of Zinc oxide
Nanoparticles for targeted therapy of cancer. The results indicated that nanoparticle drug delivery systems show a potential therapeutic application in cancer treatment. But toxicity, stability and biocompatibility issues remain as hurdles in the clinical use.
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