Introduction: In recent decades, natural polymers, especially polysaccharides, have been used as carriers to deliver a wide range of therapeutic agents. Chitosan, the second most abundant natural polysaccharide after cellulose, is a biocompatible, biodegradable, hydrophilic, non-toxic, high bioavailability polymer, capable of forming films, gels, nanoparticles, microparticles, and granules. Curcumin is a yellow polyphenol extracted primarily from the Curcuma longa plant, but also from several other members of the ginger family. To overcome the aqueous solubility and poor bioavailability of the drug curcumin, emphasize its functional properties, and expand its applications in the pharmaceutical industry, many nanoscale systems have been widely used for drug loading and release. Over several decades, chitosan has been widely used as a natural biopolymer. It was studied due to its polycationic nature, biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-toxicity and non-allergenicity. The present study is a review of the findings of the use of nanocurcumin based on chitosan in cancer treatment.
Methods: In this study, by searching Pubmed, Cochrane, Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus databases, relevant studies were searched from the beginning to 2023 and the resulting studies were reviewed.
Results: Chitosan is a linear polysaccharide obtained by deacetylation of chitin. Also, biodegradable chitosan breaks down in the human body into safe compounds (amino sugars) that are easily absorbed. Chitosan has hydroxyl and amine functional groups that can be modified to achieve specific goals, turning it into a polymer with a wide range of potential applications. The findings show that research on chitosan-based systems containing various drugs, including curcumin, for various therapeutic applications such as cancer treatment has increased in recent years. The results of various studies showed that the use of formulated curcumin, on the one hand, increases its absorption and bioavailability, and on the other hand, increases its effectiveness on cancer cells, including breast cancer, and these results can indicate the beneficial effects of curcumin nanoformula compounds in Prevention and treatment of breast cancer.
Conclusion: The development of colloidal systems for the encapsulation of curcumin release is a promising strategy to overcome the limitations of drug release. In this research, chitosan-based nanocarriers and their physical and chemical properties, such as surface charge, morphology, encapsulation driving force, and release characteristics, have been investigated. These characteristics determine the performance of chitosan-based nanocarriers for pharmaceutical applications. Due to the higher bioavailability of formulated compounds of curcumin compared to the free form of curcumin and due to the low toxicity of this herbal medicine, it can be used along with other anticancer drugs in the treatment of breast cancer.
Keywords: nanocurcumin, nanomedicine, nanotechnology, cancer