Acta Pharm. 57 (2007) 249-268
10.2478/v10007-007-0021-9
Review article
Physical mechanisms and methods employed in
drug delivery to tumors and in anticancer therapies
ERIM BEŠIĆ
eb@pharma.hr
Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Pharmacy and
Biochemistry, University of Zagreb, 10002 Zagreb, Croatia
Accepted April 2, 2007
In addition to several well-known drug delivery strategies developed
to facilitate effective chemotherapy with anticancer agents, some new
approaches have been recently established, based on specific effects arising
from the applications of ultrasound, magnetic and electric fields on drug
delivery systems. This paper gives an overview of newly developed methods of
drug delivery to tumors and of the related anticancer therapies based on the
combined use of different physical methods and specific drug carriers. The
conventional strategies and new approaches have been put into perspective to
revisit the existing and to propose new directions to overcome the threatening
problem of cancer diseases.
Keywords: drug delivery, ultrasound, sonoporation,
EPR, magnetoliposomes, magnetic fluid hypethermia, electrochemotherapy,
electroporation