Double layered hydroxides as potential anti-cancer drug delivery agents

The emergence of nanotechnology has changed the scenario of the medical world by revolutionizing the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of cancer. This nanotechnology has been proved miraculous in detecting cancer cells, delivering chemotherapeutic agents and monitoring treatment from non-specific to highly targeted killing of tumor cells. In the past few decades, a number of inorganic materials have been investigated such as calcium phosphate, gold, carbon materials, silicon oxide, iron oxide, and layered double hydroxide (LDH) for examining their efficacy in targeting drug delivery. The reason behind the selection of these inorganic materials was their versatile and unique features efficient in drug delivery, such as wide availability, rich surface functionality, good biocompatibility, potential for target delivery, and controlled release of the drug from these inorganic nanomaterials. Although, the drug-LDH hybrids are found to be quite instrumental because of their application as advanced anti-cancer drug delivery systems, there has not been much research on them. This mini review is set to highlight the advancement made in the use of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) as anti-cancer drug delivery agents. Along with the advantages of LDHs as anti-cancer drug delivery agents, the process of interaction of some of the common anti-cancer drugs with LDH has also been discussed.