Oral delivery of anticancer drugs: challenges and opportunities

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Kaushik Thanki
  • Rahul P Gangwal
  • Abhay T Sangamwar
  • Sanyog Jain

The present report focuses on the various aspects of oral delivery of anticancer drugs. The significance of oral delivery in cancer therapeutics has been highlighted which principally includes improvement in quality of life of patients and reduced health care costs. Subsequently, the challenges incurred in the oral delivery of anticancer agents have been especially emphasized. Sincere efforts have been made to compile the various physicochemical properties of anticancer drugs from either literature or predicted in silico via GastroPlus™. The later section of the paper reviews various emerging trends to tackle the challenges associated with oral delivery of anticancer drugs. These invariably include efflux transporter based-, functional excipient- and nanocarrier based-approaches. The role of drug nanocrystals and various others such as polymer based- and lipid based-nanocarriers in the bioavailability enhancement along with their clinical outcomes has also been discussed exhaustively. Furthermore, an insight on the various absorption mechanisms of these nanocarriers across the gastrointestinal tract has also been highlighted.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society
Volume170
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)15-40
Number of pages26
ISSN0168-3659
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Aug 2013

    Research areas

  • Administration, Oral, Animals, Antineoplastic Agents, Drug Delivery Systems, Humans, Neoplasms

ID: 161995018