Breaking the barricade of oral chemotherapy through polysaccharide nanocarrier

Oral chemotherapy is the most preferred drug administration method due to non-invasive administration, more convenient, low healthcare cost, and patient compliance in comparison to intravenous chemotherapy. However, oral chemotherapy poses numerous hurdles to drug absorption through the gastrointestinal tract. Recently, nanocarriers have been extensively used for delivering anticancer drugs orally. Nanocarriers present distinctive advantages that comprise aiding drug dissolution owing to high surface to volume ratio, surface modifiability, protecting drugs from the harsh gastrointestinal environments and other features, all of which contribute to enhanced drugs bioavailability. Nanocarriers based on polysaccharides have emerged as the favored choice owing to their low/non-toxicity, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. In the last decade, the research on oral delivery of anticancer drug using polysaccharide nanocarrier has diversified in many fields. Yet there is no report that summaries these advances. This article aims to bridge that lacuna. In this review article, we have discussed the problems associated with oral chemotherapy and conquer these through polysaccharide nanocarriers. This review also provides a general idea on the current developments in polysaccharide nanocarrier for oral bioavailability enhancement of anticancer drugs.