Electrospun nanofibers for local anticancer therapy: Review of in vivo activity

Abstract Currently, chemotherapy is the most common treatment for oncological diseases. Systemic administration of chemotherapeutics provides an easy and effective distribution of the active agents throughout the patient’s body, however organs may be severely impaired by serious life-threatening side effects. In many oncological diseases, particularly solid tumors, the local application of chemotherapeutics would be advantageous. Recently, nanofibrous materials as local drug delivery systems have attracted much attention. They have considerable potential in the treatment of various cancers as they can provide a high concentration of the drug at the target site for a prolonged time, thereby lowering total exposure and adverse effects. The present review describes the specifics of drug delivery to the tumor microenvironment, basic characteristics of nanofibrous materials and their preparation, and comprehensively summarizes recent scientific reports concerning in vivo experiments with drug-loaded electrospun nanofibrous systems designed for local anticancer therapy.