Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 2
Targeted Nanomedicines:
Challenges and Opportunities
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XINPENG MA, GANG HUANG, YIGUANG WANG AND
JINMING GAO*
Department of Pharmacology, Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer
Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas,
TX 75390, USA
*
E-mail: jinming.gao@utsouthwestern.edu
2.1 Introduction
Cancer is one of the leading public health risks in the world. In the United
States alone, one in four deaths is caused by this disease. A total of over 1.6
million new cancer cases and 0.58 million deaths are expected in 2012.
1
Current
cancer treatments include surgical resection, radiation therapy, and chemo-
therapy.
2
In the past 50 years, small molecular anticancer drugs have been the
mainstay treatment for many cancers at the advanced stage, but have shown
almost no reduction in the death rate. These chemotherapeutic drugs lack
specific targeting to the cancer cells and, consequently, they cause severe side-
effects in patients by killing healthy cells. Therefore, it would be desirable to
develop therapeutic systems that can directly target and kill cancerous cells
selectively over the normal cells. More than a decade into the era of ''targeted
therapy,'' only a few small molecular drugs are truly amenable to this
approach. Imatinib for chronic myeloid leukemia, erlotinib for epidermal
growth factor receptor mutated non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and
Trastuzumab
1
for human epidermal growth factor receptor-2-positive breast
