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Article History:
Received: 5 August 2017
Revised: 17 February 2018
Accepted: 20 February 2018
ePublished: 18 March 2018
Keywords:
* PLGA
* Paclitaxel
* Nanoparticle
* Size
Abstract
Purpose: The size of polymeric nanoparticles is considered as an effective factor in cancer therapy due to enterance into tumor tissue via the EPR effect. The purpose of this work was to investigate the effective parameters on poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)-paclitaxel (PLGA - PTX) nanoparticles size.
Methods: We prepared PLGA-PTX nanoparticles via single emulsion and precipitation methods with variable paremeters including drug concentration, aqueous to organic phase volume ratio, polymer concentration, sonication time and PVA concentration.
Results: PLGA-PTX nanoparticles were characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results exhibited that the diameter of nanoparticles enhanced with increasing drug, polymer and PVA concentrations whereas organic to aqueous phase volume ratio and sonication time required to the optimization for a given size.
Conclusion: The precipitation method provides smaller nanoparticles compared to emulsion one. Variable parameters including drug concentration, aqueous to organic phase volume ratio, polymer concentration, sonication time and PVA concentration affect diameter of nanoparticles.
Introduction
Cancer is a major global cause of morbidity and mortality which is estimated that the incidence of all new cancer cases will reach 22 million by 2030 in worldwide.1 Chemotherapy is a versatile cancer treatment modality due to its application as first line,2,3 adjuvant4 and/or palliative therapy5 in the fight against different cancers. In addition, chemotherapy is easier to administer and less invasive compared to other clinical cancer treatment modalities such as surgical removal and radiotherapy. Unfortunately, since the efficacy of most chemotherapeutic drugs is dose dependent, severe chemo-induced side events have been observed at higher doses.6-8 Thus targeted delivery of drugs with minimum non-specific exposure is essential for successful chemotherapy. Tumor targeting chemotherapy can be accomplished by exploiting the diseases' pathophysiology such as unique or overexpressed molecules9 and leaky tumor vasculature.10 Therapeutics can be passively targeted to the hyperpermeable tumor vasculature commonly observed on most cancers. Moreover, the absence of lymphatic drainage in tumors leads to retention of accumulated therapeutic agents within the tumor tissue.11,12 This unusual extravasation, accumulation and retention of expediently sized therapeutic molecules within tumor tissue is called enhanced permeability and retention (EPR)...