Dendrimers as prospective nanocarrier for targeted delivery against lung cancer

Abstract

Dendrimers are synthetic nano-molecules with spherical structure and a stardust topology. They have an amphiphilic nature and a hollow structure, with different layers over their central core structure representing each generation. Numerous drugs can be incorporated into the cavity present which helps solve a variety of problems experienced in the delivery of drugs such as poor solubility. Nowadays, dendrimers are being employed for chemotherapeutic drug delivery. The most common cancer worldwide is lung cancer which is caused due to various reasons, the major one being smoking. Dendrimers are presently utilised for the delivery of drugs to various targets and are proved to be successful in treating cancer, with their efficiency to treat lung cancer at various stages is being assessed. Although many nanoparticles (NPs) are available for their medical applications, from diagnosis to cancer treatment, dendrimers succeed amongst all due to most potential in terms of their structure, ability to provide good bioavailability and better stability than other NPs. There are mainly-three types of dendrimers used in treating lung cancer- PAMAM, PLL and PPI dendrimers. This review aims to describe the various properties of the dendrimers, investigate the properties of their various types and discover the reasons for their employment in treatment of lung cancer, the novelty being brought in them and the alterations which make them a potential chemotherapeutic drug delivery system. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd