Patients treated with conventional cancer chemotherapy suffer from side effects of the drugs due to non-selective action of chemotherapeutic drugs to normal cells. Active targeting nanoparticles that are conjugated to targeting ligands on the surface of nanoparticles play an important role in improving drug selectivity to the cancer cell. Several chemotherapeutic drugs and traditional/herbal medicines reported for anticancer activities have been investigated for their selective delivery to cancer cells by active targeting nanoparticles. This systematic review summarizes reports on this application. Literature search was conducted through PubMed database search up to March 2017 using the terms nanoparticle, chemotherapy, traditional medicine, herbal medicine, natural medicine, natural compound, cancer treatment, and active targeting. Out of 695 published articles, 61 articles were included in the analysis based on the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The targeting ligands included proteins/peptides, hyaluronic acid, folic acid, antibodies/antibody fragments, aptamer, and carbohydrates/polysaccharides. In vitro and in vivo studies suggest that active targeting nanoparticles increase selectivity in cellular uptake and/or cytotoxicity over the conventional chemotherapeutic drugs and non-targeted nanoparticle platform, particularly enhancement of drug efficacy and safety. However, clinical studies are required to confirm these findings.
Keywords: active targeting; cancer; chemotherapy; ligands; nanoparticles; natural active compounds.