Recent trends in the use of lipidic nanoparticles as pharmaceutical carriers for cancer therapy and diagnostics

Lipidic nanoparticles have recently gained attention in cancer research. In this review we are focused on the solid lipid nanoparticle (SLN) and nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC). They have significant advantages including low toxicity of the lipids and the controlled release of the drugs incorporated into the matrix. The recent trends described here contain functions added to nanoparticles to improve the therapeutic efficacy, such as long-circulation, co-loading of drugs, the combination with RNA/DNA, pH stimulus-sensitive drug release, incorporation of agents for imaging and the attachment of ligands for active targeting. By putting it all together, it may be possible to obtain an ideal multifunctional nanocarrier for cancer therapy. Among the many efforts made so far to obtain one, SLN/NLC should have a place in this search for a combined therapeutic and diagnostic system with dramatically enhanced efficacy in cancer therapy.