ABSTRACT
Cancer is a leading cause of deaths and is becoming the #1 killer in
many countries (https://www.moh.gov.sg/corp/index.do). Nevertheless, there
has been no substantial progress in fighting against cancer in the past 50 years.
The cancer death rate in USA has remained the same, being 1.9390/00 of the
total population in 1950, 1.9440/00 in 2001, 1.9340/00 in 2002 and 1.9010/00
in 2003 with small progress of 1.8580/00 in 2004. In contrast, great progress
can be observed in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, for which the
death rate in USA decreased significantly from 5.8680/00 of the total population
in 1950 to 2.4580/00 in 2000, a 58.1% decrease in 50 years (https://www.
cancer.org/docroot/STT/stt 0.asp). While there could be many reasons such as
the development of in-depth knowledge about the disease and discovery of
new drugs, it seems that the application of high technology to develop effective
medical devices such as cardiovascular stents has played a key role in saving
lives from cardiovascular diseases. What we need is the equivalence of “stents”
for the treatment of cancer. Nanoparticles of biodegradable polymers could be a
candidate.
