Coactive chemoradiotherapy using polysaccharides- and synthetic polymers-based hydrogels for cancer treatment: A review

Abstract

Cancer will become the most imperative healthcare problem in the world in near future, owing to its high incidence and mortality. Depend on stage and type of cancer as well as the general health of the patient, the most common cancer treatment strategies are surgery, radiotherapy (RT), chemotherapy, and chemoradiotherapy (CRT). Amongst, CRT is a definitive or adjuvant treatment for numerous advanced cancers, which exhibits more effectiveness than sole treatment alone. Despite damage to both healthy and tumoral tissues, if the damage to normal tissue is less than that to cancerous cells, CRT can be considered as a powerful therapeutic approach. Sustained and targeted delivery of anticancer drugs as well as the use of radiosensitizers can be improve the CRT outcomes and reduce side effects. As superior physicochemical/biological properties, hydrogels are promising biomaterials for formulation of anticancer drugs as well as radiosensitizers or radionuclides. Furthermore, stimuli-responsive hydrogels are more potential biomaterial in the topic due to “smart” and on-demand release of chemotherapy drug(s) and radiosensitizers or radionuclides. As above-discussed facts, this assay focused on presenting first comprehensive summary of recent progresses and future direction regarding the localized synergistic CRT of cancer based on hydrogels.

Keywords

• Chemotherapy drugs
• Polysaccharides
• Synthetic polymers
• Hydrogels
• Radiosensitizers
• Cancer