ABSTRACT

Taxanes have proved their immense utility in myriad cancers, when administered intravenously. These are widely indicated in patients suffering from tumors of the breasts, lungs, ovaries, and several other carcinomas. Parenteral administration of taxanes encounters several adverse effects such as myelosuppression, peripheral neuropathy, and hypersensitivity reactions. In order to surmount the aforementioned challenges and to ensure superior patient compliance, these alkaloidal esters are needed to be administered orally. Oral dosing also provides better flexibility of dosing regimen, painless injection, and avoids extensive hospitalization. However, it is marked with a battery of challenges, including compromised solubility, structural and chemical instability in biological fluids, P-glycoprotein efflux, and extensive first-pass metabolism. In this context, nanostructured systems—such as dendrimers, solid-lipid nanoparticles, self-nanoemulsifying systems, nanoemulsions, micelles, nanocrystals, liposomes, and biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles—inherit the potential to overcome such challenges successfully. Moreover, oral delivery of such nanocarrier systems enables improved drug loading and encapsulation, thus augmenting biopharmaceutical attributes through intestinal diffusion and permeability, resulting eventually in drugs being available systematically. This chapter provides insight on the noteworthy progress made with regard to different orally-administered nanocarriers of taxanes, thus providing the plausible surrogates to the existing parenteral systems.