• Investigation of cisplatin nano-delivery systems for the treatment of breast cancer
  • AmirAli Mousavi Salehi,1,*
    1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.


  • Introduction: Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, leading to high mortality. Current treatment strategies for breast cancer, which include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, may not be practical due to the increased risk of recurrence, poor patient response, and the emergence of drug resistance. Intensive research is being conducted to develop new molecules and technologies to apply more effective and safer therapeutic strategies to overcome this disease. One of these effective drugs for cancer treatment is cisplatin and its derivatives. Cisplatin and its derivatives are essential drugs for treating various human cancers, including breast cancer. Cisplatin currently accounts for about 50% of the anticancer drugs in clinical use. However, low solubility, serious side effects, and the development of resistance to cisplatin limit its continued use in the clinic. The interaction and reaction of cisplatin with other proteins are also associated with cellular damage. Therefore, effectively controlling the delivery and release of cisplatin at the target site is a useful way to overcome these undesirable side effects of cisplatin. Nanoparticle delivery systems for cisplatin have been developed for effective cancer chemotherapy. Compared with cisplatin, cisplatin nanoparticles showed specific tumor-targeting ability, redox effect-responsive drug release method, and more effective antitumor activity with fewer side effects and systemic toxicity than cisplatin, which is of great significance for drug chemistry. It has treatment in the clinic. In this article, the effect of different cisplatin nanoparticle systems in the treatment of breast cancer was studied.
  • Methods: By searching the keywords "cisplatin", "breast cancer" and "nanoparticle delivery system" in the Pubmed, Scopus, and Google scholar databases, studies on cisplatin and nanoparticle delivery systems in the treatment of breast cancer were examined.
  • Results: In the first study, by using a liposome formulation and loading cisplatin particles into lipid nanoparticles, it was found that this compound, which has an average diameter of 119.7 ± 2.1 nm and entrapment efficiency of 96.65 ± 3%, causes the release of stability and increased cellular uptake. And showed that these cisplatin-containing nanoparticles play an important role in improving the efficacy of the drug and reducing its dose. In the second study, disulfide-switchable smart nanoparticles complexing cisplatin (NPS-cisplatin switch) were used. The results showed that the NPS-cisplatin switch had a size of 150 nm and a drug entrapment efficiency of more than 90%. It showed good release and targeting in resistant breast cancer cells and also showed a significant killing effect in vitro in a population of mice with resistant breast cancer cells. In the third study, a tumor-targeted nano delivery system was prepared using branched polyethyleneimine (BPEI) and hyaluronic acid (HA). This cisplatin-polyethyleneimine conjugate (BPEI-SS -Pt) has a drug loading efficiency of 32.66 ± 0.06%, demonstrating the specific tumor targeting ability and redox-responsive drug release method. Moreover, more effective antitumor activity with fewer side effects and systemic toxicity was achieved in vivo cancer treatment compared with cisplatin, which is of great significance for chemotherapy in the clinic.
  • Conclusion: Based on the studies conducted and the results obtained, cisplatin particles in the form of complexes or nanoparticle carriers have a stronger active effect than free cisplatin. And among the studied and existing nanoparticles, liposome formulation (or loading of cisplatin particles in lipid nanoparticles) has shown the most lethal effect and the least toxicity so far.
  • Keywords: cisplatin, breast cancer, nanoparticle delivery system