Use of anticancer platinum compounds in combination therapies and challenges in drug delivery.

As one of the leading and most important metal-based drugs, platinum based pharmaceuticals are widely used in the treatment of solid malignancies. However, significant side effects and acquired drug resistance have limited their clinical applications, despite this, platinum has shown strong inhibitory effects for a wide assortment of tumors. Drug delivery systems using emerging technologies such as liposomes, dendrimers, polymers, nanotubes and other nano-compositions, all show promise for the safe delivery of platinum based compounds. Due to the specificity of nano-formulations; unwanted side-effects and drug resistance can be largely averted. In addition, combinational therapy has been shown to be an effective way to improve the efficacy of platinum based anti-tumor drugs. This review first introduces drug delivery systems used for platinum and combinational therapeutic delivery. Then we highlight some of the recent advances in the field of drug delivery for combinational therapy; specifically progress in leveraging the cytotoxic nature of platinum based drugs, the combinational effect of other drugs with platinum, while evaluating the drug targeting, side effect reducing and site-specific nature of nanotechnology based delivery platforms.