A Review on Environment Responsive Hydrogels and their Advancement in Cancer Therapy

Subject Areas : The Application of Chemistry in Environment

Mehrab Fallahi-Samberan ¹ , Payam Kazemian ²

1 - Department Of Chemical Engineering
2 - Islamic Azad University- Ahar Branch

Received: 2021-09-09 Accepted : 2022-02-03 Published : 2020-08-22

Keywords: hydrogel, cancer, Drug delivery systems, Environment Responsive Materials,

Abstract :

In recent years, with the rise in research interest in new functional polymer materials and nanotechnology, drug delivery vehicles have become the focus of clinical medicine, especially for cancer treatment. Hydrogels, especially smart hydrogels, have received increasing attention due to their low toxicity, good biocompatibility, and biodegradability. Recent decades have witnessed numerous successful examples of hydrogel applications as anticancer drug delivery vehicles. Hydrogel carriers can cause fewer side effects than systemic chemotherapy, and these carriers also enable stable delivery of the drug to tumor sites. Intelligent hydrogels can respond to the environmental stimuli. Todays some internal and external stimuli are widely utilized for designing smart hydrogels for cancer therapies. smart hydrogels can undergo degradation or conformational changes under temperature, light, pH, redox potential, magnetic field and ultrasound stimulation, which can be utilized to achieve high drug delivery efficiency for in situ cancer treatment. In this research, the different sizes of hydrogels used for cancer treatment and their related delivery routes, the design strategies for stimuli- responsive hydrogels and the research concerning smart hydrogels reported in the past few years have been studied. In recent years, with the rise in research interest in new functional polymer materials and nanotechnology, drug delivery vehicles have become the focus of clinical medicine, especially for cancer treatment.