INHALED NANOMEDICINE FOR LUNG CANCER: INNOVATIONS AND CHALLENGES IN TARGETED PULMONARY DELIVERY.

Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer worldwide and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, accounting for around 18% of all cancer-related fatalities, according to the most recent data available on cancer surveillance. Lung cancer ranks among the top five most lethal cancers worldwide, with an overall 5-year survival rate of 20–26%. Inhaled delivery of chemotherapeutic nanomedicines has been proposed as a solution to this drawback of inhaled small molecule chemotherapeutics. These nanomedicines may serve as slow-release drug depots in the lungs or actively transport the packaged drug to lung cancer cells through cancer targeting ligands. Pulmonary drug delivery for lung cancer therapy has been only partly explored in recent decades even though it could represent an attractive alternative route of administration of drug-based therapies, including chemotherapy. In this article, we summarize the best results and limitations of these drug delivery systems and discuss the potential capacity of nanomedicine.