Russian scientists have unveiled a breakthrough method for delivering the anticancer drug doxorubicin. According to Sergey Deev, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Chief Researcher at the State Research Center “Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry,” the new approach shows impressive efficacy — it is ten times more effective than conventional chemotherapy.
Doxorubicin fights cancer by damaging the DNA of malignant cells. Previously, the drug’s use was limited by several issues: it had poor water solubility and harmed both cancerous and healthy cells. Scientists addressed these problems using nanocontainers that hold the chemotherapeutic agent and fully degrade in the bloodstream, ensuring precise drug delivery.
As stated in Deev’s report, the results of in vivo tests on a model of early melanoma metastases in the lungs confirm that the method’s efficacy is significantly higher than that of standard chemotherapy. The mechanism works as follows: the drug exits the blood vessel into the intercellular space (interstitium) and then penetrates deep into the tumor tissue. As a result, the medication reaches the cancer cells directly, without the involvement of carrier nanoparticles.
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