Nanomedicines: a theranostic approach for hepatocellular carcinoma

The liver is an imperative organ of tremendous importance concerned with maintenance of metabolic functions and detoxification of exogenous and endogenous challenges like xenobiotics, viral infections and chronic alcoholism. Liver diseases particularly hepatitis B virus infections, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma continue to pose a significant health challenge worldwide due to the lack of therapeutic management options besides liver resection and transplantation. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. HCC has a high mortality rate because of poor diagnosis. The majority of patients with liver cancer die within one year as a result of poor patient compliance. HCC is clinically treated by chemotherapy besides surgery. However, most anticancer drugs have high toxicity and low specificity, leading to systemic toxicity and severe side effects. To limit the severe side effects of cancer chemotherapy on normal tissues, tumor targeting drug delivery systems need to be explored, which provides the impetus to develop targeted therapies for achieving higher efficacy with minimal side effects. The nanostructures used as good drug carriers, possess advantages of good solubility including high drug encapsulation efficiency, high cellular uptake, further desirable pharmacokinetics and can preferentially accumulate at the tumor site through the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect with the goal of minimizing toxic effects on healthy tissues while maintaining antitumor efficacy.