Nano drug delivery strategy of 5-fluorouracil for the treatment of colorectal cancer

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, annually responsible for around 655,000 deaths worldwide. CRC usually develops very slowly, over a period of 10 to 20 years and typically begin as a non-cancerous polyp that develops on the inner layer of the colon or rectum. However, CRC is curable if detected at an early stage. The current treatment of colorectal cancer primarily depends on surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted therapy. A combination of two or more treatments is often recommended to achieve the best outcome, depending on the stage of cancer development. In this review, we summarized the challenges of using 5-Fluorouracil as chemotherapy to treat colorectal cancer, and discussed the implications of nano drug delivery system for improved therapeutic outcome of 5-Flurouracil.

Keywords

• Colorectal cancer
• 5-fluorouracil
• Nano drug delivery
• Nanoparticles
• Silica nanoparticles