Microneedles as Gateways: Smart Nanoparticle Delivery for Enhanced Breast Cancer Treatment

Breast cancer is a common and potentially fatal disease caused by the abnormal proliferation of cells in the breast tissue. This outlines the critical need for early detection and awareness for effective prevention and treatment. Current therapeutic approaches for breast cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and radiation therapy. Even with the promising strides made in breast cancer research and the inevitable advent of new treatments and drugs, achieving optimal therapeutic outcomes remains challenging due to various obstacles. Treatment with side effects is one of the greatest challenges arising from nonspecificity, with multidrug resistance demanding prolonged doses to ensure patients' quality of life. Nanomedicine has emerged as a revolutionary approach for improving breast cancer therapy by leveraging nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery, enhanced biocompatibility and reduced systemic toxicity. Despite these advantages, nanoparticle-based therapies face challenges, including limited tumor penetration, off-target toxicity, and clinical translation barrier. To overcome these challenges, microneedle technology has been introduced as a minimally invasive, patient-friendly platform for localized drug delivery. MNs facilitate the direct transdermal administration of therapeutic agents, enhancing drug bioavailability at tumor sites while minimizing systemic side effects. The integration of NPs into MN systems represents a novel strategy to optimize cancer treatment by ensuring controlled and precise drug release. This review explores the role of nanoparticles in breast cancer therapy, the design and fabrication of MNs, and the synergies between these two technologies, while also addressing challenges in clinical translation, regulatory frameworks, and future perspectives in cancer nanomedicine.