Liposomes a vesicular nanocarrier: potential advancements in cancer chemotherapy

The indispensable obligation behind the successful therapy of a disease is to deliver the effective drug/bioactive concentration with sustained release manner at the diseased organs without any exposure to the healthy tissues. Novel drug-delivery systems increase the concentration and persistence of drug at the vicinity of the target site and thereby minimize the undesired side effects of the drug to the normal tissues of body. With advances in nanotechnology, several new drug delivery approaches have become available that may fulfil the requirement of safe and effective drug therapy. Among these techniques, vesicular drug-delivery systems, particularly liposomes, are under rigorous research for their applicability to deliver FDA-approved and newer drugs. Liposomes have been widely investigated as one of the most widely used nanocarriers in cancer therapy and have shown their potential in spatial and temporal release of bioactive agents for the effective treatment of various life-threatening diseases, including cancer. Various targeted and triggered-release approaches of bioactive substances using liposomes further improve the applicability of liposomes in cancer therapeutics. Thus, keeping these points in view, the present review has been focussed on application of liposomes for development of liposome technology and its novel applications for effective cancer therapy.