Enabling nanoparticles to penetrate deeply in tumors
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 16:31
in Health & Medicine
Too often, researchers designing nanoparticles capable of delivering effective doses of anticancer agents to tumors must balance the need to choose a nanoparticle that is small enough to escape the leaky blood vessels that surround tumors but large enough to avoid rapid clearance from the blood stream via the kidneys. Balancing these two requirements usually results in using nanoparticles that are indeed small enough to accumulate in the vicinity of tumors, but that are really too large to penetrate deeply enough into tumors to have the maximum therapeutic effect.