Nanomedicine for combinational anticancer drug therapeutics: Recent advances, challenges, and future perspectives

Abstract Cancer is a dreadful disease and is a leading cause of death worldwide. It possesses an abnormal, immature group of cells that invades healthy tissues and causes metastasis. The repeated administration of chemotherapeutic drugs and radiation therapy produces adverse effects, such as chronic toxicity, multidrug resistance, and complexity among tumor cells. Therefore targeted drug delivery systems are a promising way to minimize loop holes associated with chemotherapeutic drugs encapsulated in conventional dosage forms. The emergence of nucleic acid (NA) loaded nanomedicine provides a unique platform and optimized tumor-targeted drug delivery. In addition, NA-targeted nanocarriers have several promising features including better biocompatibility and self-programmability, which makes it a theragnostic optimal tool in cancer therapy. NA faces obstacle during systemic and intracellular uptake. These challenges may overcome by using of NA loaded nanomedicine. In order to synergize the therapeutic efficacy of NA a combinational therapeutic approach may help improve antitumor results via multiple target action, at low dose results to reduce side effects. Furthermore, a combinational approach for cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy–NA-based codelivery was developed and showed efficient codelivery of NA and other anticancer drugs. This chapter discusses NA as singular and combinational based therapeutics loaded with nanocarriers, which allows successful delivery by overcoming these barriers. Moreover, nanocarriers hold promising potential for delivery of NA and making effective anticancer therapeutics.