Lipid-based nanocarrier-enabled combination therapy for breast cancer: overcoming drug resistance toward precision oncology
摘要
Breast cancer continues to be one of the most common causes of cancer death across the globe due to molecular heterogeneity, high rate of recurrence, and growing prevalence of resistance against conventional treatments. Despite the positive contribution of chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy to breast cancer patient outcomes, there is much room for improvement due to the systemic toxicity, low solubility, nonselective biodistribution, and the fast-growing problem of multidrug resistance (MDR) in these approaches. It becomes particularly challenging for triple-negative breast cancer and other aggressive forms of the disease that lack adequate treatment options. As a result, there is an immediate need for developing more effective and specific strategies to address the mentioned obstacles. The idea of combination therapy seems to provide the best rationale for the development of such therapies, as it allows targeting multiple oncogenic signaling pathways, preventing resistance formation, and minimizing the drug dosage used. At the same time, traditional combination therapies usually face issues such as the lack of appropriate pharmacokinetics, instability of combinations, and adverse off-target effects, preventing their effective implementation in clinical practice. One of the ways of solving these problems is through the use of lipid-based nanocarriers that allow combining multiple therapeutic agents and overcoming their drawbacks, such as poor drug solubility, uncontrolled drug release, the absence of tumor selectivity, and susceptibility to efflux. Importantly, lipid nanocarriers may contain several types of drugs, including chemotherapeutic drugs, genetic material, and immunological substances. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advances in lipid-based nanocarrier-mediated combination therapies in breast cancer treatment.
Graphical Abstract