Current applications of electrospun polymeric nanofibers in cancer therapy

Cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases which had been encountering the human beings since last several decades. In 2018, according to national cancer institute, about 609,640 people are expected to die from cancer and about 1,735,350 new patients are expected to be diagnosed with this lethal disease. Nanotechnology has played a significant role in almost every field of life including medical sciences. A controlled and sustained release of drug is much desirable and beneficial when one has to deal with cancer as such drugs do also harm to normal cells. General anticancer drugs, used in chemotherapy, are associated with severe side effects due to high dosage requirements. With the help of nanotechnology, great outcomes for instance, anticancer drug loaded nanofibers, have been achieved in cancer therapy requiring less amount of drug as drug is preserved in these nanofibers for prolonged time. Electrospun nanofibers have very large surface area, controllable pore size and tunable drug release profiles which make these nanofibers promising candidates in medical field. To promote green synthesis of nanofibers, researchers have also used water as an effective solvent instead of toxic chemicals and reduced the environmental burden. This green approach of nanofibers fabrication has a good potential to be used in regenerative medicine including cancer therapy because of environmental friendly characteristics. Though, there are numerous research reports available on the application of nanofibers. To the best of our knowledge, no review paper has been reported solely on the applications of nanofibers for cancer therapy. Therefore, this review paper describes some electrospun nanofibers of pure polymer, blends and block copolymers that have been reported for successful cancer therapy.