Radioactive microspheres in therapeutics

Microspheres as a drug delivery system hold great promise in reaching the goal of controlled drug delivery as well as site specific delivery. In the last few decades, scientific and technological advancements have been made in the research and development of radiolabeled microspheres. These are used successfully for the treatment of various cancers and tumors. Since response to chemotherapy and external radiotherapy is not so effective and hazardous too, so an alternative to this is internal radiation therapy. These radiolabeled microspheres are very stable and have a proven efficacy in the field of primary as well as metastatic cancers. Radioactive microspheres can be selectively targeted to various tumors without undue radiation to the nontumorous tissues. The radioactive microspheres are injected to halt tumor growth via the blood supply, thereby enabling surgical removal once the tumor size decreases. This review provides an outlook to various aspects of radioactive microspheres and their role in treatment of various tumors and cancers.