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Erlotinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor and it can treat tumors, such as pancreatic and locally advanced lung cancer or metastatic cancer. The traditional formulation of erlotinib currently available is an oral delivery type that presents serious side effects such as hepatotoxicity, skin rashes, gastrointestinal disturbance, renal dysfunction, drug resistance and hematological symptoms. Besides this, other disadvantages of erlotinib provided mostly by oral administration are the comprehensive metabolism, low bioavailability, poor solubility and off-target impact. Overcoming such unfavorable attributes of the medication, innovative medication delivery mechanisms like nanocapsules, liposomes, microspheres, microparticles solid lipid nanoparticles, nanosponge, and nanoparticles have been studied that have really shown their lead over traditional formulations. This article summarizes the novel erlotinib drug delivery systems to boost its clinical efficacy and reduce systemic toxicity. Novel formulations of erlotinib will offer positive outcomes in cancer therapy and will play an important part in improving the drug's therapeutic potential.

Pyogenic granuloma is a commonly occurring inflammatory hyperplasia involving the oral cavity. Surgical resection of the lesion is the mainstay treatment of pyogenic granuloma. However, intraoperative bleeding, postoperative infection, and recurrence chances are more with the surgical technique. Therefore, sclerotherapy has evolved as an effective alternative approach, which is simple, noninvasive, with minimal discomfort to the patient and having little recurrences and few complications. This case report is an attempt to highlight the usefulness of sclerotherapy procedure in the management of orogingival pyogenic granuloma, particularly involving the anterior esthetic zone of the oral cavity.

The conventional chemotherapy for leukemia involves frequent dosing, severe side effects and lack of specificity of such anticancer drugs. The treatment with most of the anti-leukemic drugs would be improved if they were delivered to their biological targets through appropriate application of nanotechnology by manipulating at the molecular level. Nanoparticles in the recent years have shown tremendous application with respect to diagnosis and treatment of leukemia. The review specifically focuses on the use of nanoparticles for sustaining the release of anti-leukemic drugs and intracellular delivery of such nanoparticles. The review also highlights the application of nanoparticles in reversal of multidrug resistance.

This chapter focuses on the recent advances in the research on nanogels as a carrier for targeted drug delivery. Nanogel structures enable easy attachment of vector groups for effective targeting to cells and desired targeted site. Recent years have witnessed an extraordinary expansion in drug delivery research in the area of targeted delivery. Nanogels as vehicles for targeting yield more effective therapies when most of the chemotherapeutics fail to show effect results clinically. Nanogels as drug delivery vehicles not only improve the therapeutic efficacy of the encapsulated drug but also reduce their side effects. Nanogels effectively communicate with several receptors for targeted drug delivery. These targeted therapies increase cancer cell sensitivity to chemotherapeutics by avoiding healthy cells and destroying resistant cells. The chapter critically discusses targeting of nanogels to various receptors such as integrin αvβ3, EphA2, folate, Hyaluronan and monoclonal antibodies.

Hydrogels are promising polymeric network capable of sustaining the release of drug but have a major limitation for encapsulation of hydrophobic drugs.This study was undertaken to encapsulate etoposide in poloxamer 407-based thermosensitive hydrogels with an aim to sustain its release.Etoposide-loaded hydrogels were prepared by the cold method and optimized for encapsulation efficiency (EE) by a 3(2) factorial design. Poloxamer 407-poloxamer 188 hydrogel (E-P407-P188) and poloxamer 407-poly(ethylene glycol) (E-P407-PEG) hydrogel were characterized for SEM, swelling, sol-gel phase transition and injectability study.In E-P407-P188 hydrogel the EE of 75% could be obtained and in E-P407-PEG hydrogels the EE was 84%. The SEM images showed a porous structure. The release of ETO was sustained up to 48 h by E-P407-PEG hydrogel and 24 h by E-P407-P188 hydrogel. The drug release was governed by first-order kinetics and followed Fickian diffusion mechanism in both the cases.Such injectable thermosensitive hydrogel of etoposide could be effectively used for continuous release of drug to the tumor and surrounding tissues.

Nanogels are being explored as drug delivery agents for targeting cancer due to their easy tailoring properties and ability to efficiently encapsulate therapeutics of diverse nature through simple mechanisms. Nanogels are proficiently internalized by the target cells, avoid accumulating in nontarget tissues thereby lower the therapeutic dosage and minimize harmful side effects. However, there is an urgent need for relevant clinical data from nanogels so as to allow translation of the nanogel concept into a viable therapeutic application for the treatment of cancer. This review highlights some of the recent progress in nanogels as a carrier in the field of nanomedicine for the treatment of cancer. The present review critically analyzes the use of extracellular pH targeting for nanogels, siRNA delivery, PEGylated nanogels, multi-responsive nanogels and intracellular delivery of nanogels for improved therapy of cancer.