The effect and mechanism of YH0618 granule on chemotherapy- induced hair loss in patients with breast cancer: study protocol for a randomized, double-blind, multi-center clinical trial

RNA Interference and Nanotechnology: A Promising Alliance for Next Generation Cancer Therapeutics

Cancer is a significant health hazard of the 21st century, and GLOBOCAN predicts increasing cancer incidence in the coming decades. Though several conventional treatment modalities exist, most of them end up causing off-target and debilitating effects, and drug resistance acquisition. Advances in our understanding of tumor molecular biology offer alternative strategies for precise, robust, and potentially less toxic treatment paradigms for circumventing the disease at the cellular and molecular level. Several deregulated molecules associated with tumorigenesis have been developed as targets in RNA interference (RNAi) based cancer therapeutics. RNAi, a post-transcriptional gene regulation mechanism, has significantly gained attention because of its precise multi-targeted gene silencing. Although the RNAi approach is favorable, the direct administration of small oligonucleotides has not been fruitful because of their inherent lower half-lives and instability in the biological systems. Moreover, the lack of an appropriate delivery system to the primary site of the tumor that helps determine the potency of the drug and its reach, has limited the effective medical utilization of these bio-drugs. Nanotechnology, with its unique characteristics of enhanced permeation and better tumor-targeting efficiency, offers promising solutions owing to the various possibilities and amenability for modifications of the nanoparticles to augment cancer therapeutics. Nanoparticles could be made multimodal, by designing and synthesizing multiple desired functionalities, often resulting in unique and potentially applicable biological structures. A small number of Phase I clinical trials with systemically administered siRNA molecules conjugated with nanoparticles have been completed and the results are promising, indicating that, these new combinatorial therapies can successfully and safely be used to inhibit target genes in cancer patients to alleviate some of the disease burden. In this review, we highlight different types of nano-based delivery strategies for engineering Nano-RNAi-based bio drugs. Furthermore, we have highlighted the insights gained from current research that are entering the preclinical evaluation and information about initial clinical developments, shaping the future for next generation cancer therapeutics.

Chinese Herbal Medicine for Reducing Chemotherapy-Associated Side-Effects in Breast Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background

Chemotherapy usually induces a variety of side-effects in cancer treatment as it cannot tell normal cells apart from cancer cells and kills both. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been regarded as a potential effective intervention for relieving the side-effects of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients.

Objective

This study aims to conduct a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of CHM as adjuvant therapy for reducing the chemotherapy-induced side-effects in the treatment of breast cancer.

Methods

Main electronic databases were searched up to May 2020 for Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) evaluating the effect of CHM on breast cancer patients with chemotherapy. The PRISMA statement was adopted in this study and meta-analyses were performed.

Results

The included studies showed unsatisfied quality. Results based on available literature indicated that the adjunctive use of CHM with chemotherapy may reduce the chemotherapeutic agents-associated adverse events, including nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, alopecia, myelosuppression, and impaired immune function.

Conclusion

A confident conclusion could not be have due to the lack of large scale and high quality trials.