Microencapsulation of Doxorubicin using Chitosan

Abstract

For some medical treatments associated with cancer, the invasion of organs is required, which must be done in a totally controlled way to obtain the expected results in the treatment. Today, most medical treatments make use of invasive therapies to combat the affected cancer tissues. Acting in this way also destroys those tissues not affected by the generation of tumor centers that confront the cancer tumor center to be treated. To ensure the objective of the treatment, doses of the drug to be administered in a little controlled and free via are used that are ultimately ineffective due to the high degradation of the active compound due to its non-existent stabilization and protection after its passage through the body and consequently possible episodes of phagocytization, responsible for the reticuloendothelial system. It is well known the side effects that one of the most promising anti-cancer molecules, doxorubicin, shows. This is a problem for its use, and one of the possibilities to avoid these desired behaviors, microencapsulation could be a possible approach. Microencapsulation of drugs allows the design of micro-level structures capable of containing the active agent with sufficient protection and stabilization to be able to reach the target site with the highest possible concentration of drug to be able to be gradually released in its entirety and produce the desired effect in the therapy in a controlled way according to a previously studied kinetic profile, which will allow a type of treatment in which the therapy will be noninvasive due to the high degree of targeting selectivity that the microcapsule allows. The use of the amine groups present in the chitosan polymer's structure to increase or modify the molecular interactions with doxorubicin is a very interesting aspect that will be treated here. These interactions help to make possible the control and protection of the active principle, as it is shown in the quantification of the drug-delivery behavior of the system made.