Nanomedicinal delivery systems for intelligent treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common cancers in the world. Numerous forms of therapy have been used for the treatment of this form of cancer for years. The most common forms of therapy have been chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Surgery has also been performed in cases where it was detected and diagnosed in early stages. These conventional strategies have certain shortcomings and nanomedicine has been widely explored for improving these methods. Various studies involving the utilization of nanomaterials have been recently investigated to improve the targeting and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. Numerous researchers have based their investigations on certain distinguishing features of hepatocellular carcinoma. These characteristic features include the SerpinB3 protein, the Raf/MEK/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cancer stem cells, which are all evidently discernible in HCC progression. Delivery systems have been designed to deliver cancer therapeutic drugs such as sorafenib as well as other anticancer agents like emtansine (DM1), siRNA, U0126 and certain peptides for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. The aim of this review is to highlight some of these recent innovations in nanomedicine performed by scientists all over the world. General and in-depth sampling of recently published research papers which investigate these types of delivery systems was done. [Display omitted] •Peptide-functionalized gold nanoparticles target SerpinB3 protein for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumor ablation.•Sorafenib-loaded multi-layered liquid crystalline nanoparticles inhibit Raf/MEK/ERK pathway for HCC tumor ablation.•Gold nanoparticles enhanced with SiRNA-loaded galactose derivatives inhibit VEGF and leads to HCC tumor ablation.•DM1-loaded ultrasmall nanoparticles inhibit function of microtubules in tumor growth and cause HCC tumor eradication.•U0126-loaded nanoparticles inhibit MAPK which leads to tumor eradication in HCC.