Recent advances in nano-based drug delivery systems for treatment of liver cancer.

Liver cancer is one of the aggressive primary tumors as evident by high rate of incidence and mortality. Conventional treatments (e.g. chemotherapy) suffer from various drawbacks including wide drug distribution, low localized drug concentration, and severe off-site toxicity. Therefore, they cannot satisfy the mounting need for safe and efficient cancer therapeutics, and alternative novel strategies are needed. Nano-based drug delivery systems (NDDSs) are among these novel approaches that can improve the overall therapeutic outcomes. NDDSs are designed to encapsulate drug molecules and target them specifically to liver cancer. Thus, NDDSs can selectively deliver therapeutic agents to the tumor cells and avoid distribution to off-target sites which should improve the safety profile of the active agents. Nonetheless, NDDSs should be well designed, in terms of the preparing materials, nanocarriers structure, and the targeting strategy, in order to accomplish these objectives. This review discusses the latest advances of NDDSs for cancer therapy with emphasis on the aforementioned essential design components. The review also entails the challenges associated with the clinical translation of NDDSs, and the future perspectives towards next-generation NDDSs. [Display omitted] • Liver cancer is one of the aggressive primary tumors as evident by its high rate of incidence and mortality. • Nano-based drug delivery systems have shown several advantages over the conventional treatment modalities for liver cancer. • Different materials had been studied as a nanocarrier for cancer management. • Nanocarriers can be classified into two main categories (organic and inorganic) according to the nature of the material used for construction. • Targeting therapeutic molecules to the liver studied to deliver chemotherapy for the treatment of liver cancer. • Various mechanisms that nano-based drug delivery systems rely on to selectively target and accumulate in liver cancer which include Passive Targeting, Stimuli-Responsive Systems, and Active Targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]