Progress in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cancer Treatment
1
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra, Kuala Lumpur 54100, Malaysia
2
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang 43000, Malaysia
3
UPM-MAKNA Cancer Research Laboratory, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang 43400, Malaysia
4
Department of Chemistry, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Pharmaceutics 2021, 13(2), 152; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13020152
Received: 26 November 2020 / Revised: 31 December 2020 / Accepted: 8 January 2021 / Published: 24 January 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Controlled Delivery Formulations)
Cancer treatment and therapy have made significant leaps and bounds in these past decades. However, there are still cases where surgical removal is impossible, metastases are challenging, and chemotherapy and radiotherapy pose severe side effects. Therefore, a need to find more effective and specific treatments still exists. One way is through the utilization of drug delivery agents (DDA) based on nanomaterials. In 2001, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) were first used as DDA and have gained considerable attention in this field. The popularity of MSNs is due to their unique properties such as tunable particle and pore size, high surface area and pore volume, easy functionalization and surface modification, high stability and their capability to efficiently entrap cargo molecules. This review describes the latest advancement of MSNs as DDA for cancer treatment. We focus on the fabrication of MSNs, the challenges in DDA development and how MSNs address the problems through the development of smart DDA using MSNs. Besides that, MSNs have also been applied as a multifunctional DDA where they can serve in both the diagnostic and treatment of cancer. Overall, we argue MSNs provide a bright future for both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
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Keywords:
mesoporous silica nanoparticles; drug delivery; cancer
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MDPI and ACS Style
Mohamed Isa, E.D.; Ahmad, H.; Abdul Rahman, M.B.; Gill, M.R. Progress in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cancer Treatment. Pharmaceutics 2021, 13, 152. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13020152
AMA Style
Mohamed Isa ED, Ahmad H, Abdul Rahman MB, Gill MR. Progress in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cancer Treatment. Pharmaceutics. 2021; 13(2):152. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13020152
Chicago/Turabian StyleMohamed Isa, Eleen D., Haslina Ahmad, Mohd B. Abdul Rahman, and Martin R. Gill 2021. "Progress in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cancer Treatment" Pharmaceutics 13, no. 2: 152. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13020152
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