International Research Journal of Oncology

Cancer, the uncontrolled proliferation of cells, is one of the most serious fatal diseases in today’s world that kills millions of people every year. It is one of the major health concerns of the 21st century which can affect any organ of people without regard to race, age or sex. Conventional chemotherapy has been successful to some extent in the treatment of cancer but their efficacy is limited by poor release pattern of drugs, poor bioavailability due to low water solubility or cell membrane permeability, high-dose requirements, adverse side effects, low therapeutic indices, development of multiple drug resistance and non-specific targeting. New drug-delivery technologies based on nanomaterials may be a ray of hope to overcome these challenges. The main goal of nanomedicine is to produce nanometre scale multifunctional entity, by engineering and designing the appropriate targeting agent which can diagnose, deliver the therapeutic agent, and monitor the treatment. Dendrimers have been investigated for encapsulation and controlled delivery of various anticancer drugs attributed to their high drug loading capacity, easy synthesis, stability, transdermal ability and oral drug-delivery potentials. Efficacy of cancer therapy may be enhanced by improved delivery kinetics. This review discusses the kinetics of drug delivery in cancer chemotherapy; which describes how the body handles anti-cancer drugs and accounts for their processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion.