Oral Drug Delivery Systems for Gastrointestinal Cancer Therapy

Abstract

The focus of this review is the oral delivery of anticancer drugs. The oral route is the most convenient method of delivering drugs as it precludes the discomfort of injection, thereby enhancing patient compliance and quality of life. Challenges associated with the oral delivery of anticancer drugs include low solubility of drug molecules, poor absorption through the gastrointestinal (GI) epithelium, inefficient permeability across biological membranes, and the need for site-specific delivery of these toxic compounds. Nanoscale drug delivery systems (DDS) improve protection of drugs from degradation in the GI tract, and drug absorption and diffusion through the intestinal epithelium. This chapter covers recently published approaches to oral DDS with an emphasis on nanoscale DDS, biological barriers to the oral delivery of anticancer drugs, techniques designed to overcome these barriers, and the exploitation of physicochemical properties of DDS to improve the therapeutic efficacy of different types of formulations. The potential for the development of efficient anticancer oral DDS that enables high patient compliance is the focus of this review.

Department(s)

Biological Sciences

Second Department

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-9-8132-2255-7; 978-9-8132-2254-0

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

2251-3965

Electronic OCLC #

1013825817

Print OCLC #

988170503

Document Type

Book - Chapter

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2018 World Scientific Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2018

Link to Full Text

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