Enhancing Drug Delivery and Tumor Penetration

Great progress has been made in anti-tumor drug delivery, but challenges still remain around improving therapeutic efficacy for cancer treatment. One of the great challenges lies in the inadequate drug accumulation at the tumor site and insufficient drug penetration in tumor tissue. Most of the anti-tumor agents accumulate in the periphery of the tumor tissue after they reach the tumor site, while therapeutics need to be penetrated deeply into the tumor tissue to be effective. In addition, it is of vital importance to overcome various obstacles to achieve uniform distribution throughout tumor tissue, even each tumor cell, and an effective anti-tumor drug concentration (lethal dose for tumor cells). Therefore, the development of effective drug delivery systems can be beneficial for preventing malignant tumor growth and improving the efficiency of tumor treatment.

This Research Topic aims at presenting the trend and recent advances on effective drug delivery strategies to the tumor site and improved penetration into tumor tissue. We welcome submissions of Original Research and Review articles focusing on delivery strategies of anti-tumor agents to tumor sites and enhancement of the accumulation and penetration of anti-tumor agents throughout the depth of tumor tissues. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following aspects:
• Design of drug delivery systems for tumor treatment
• Application of molecular probes in enhancing drug accumulation in the tumor site
• Enhanced drug penetration via depletion of tumor stroma
• Enhanced drug accumulation in tumor tissue via controlled release of anti-tumor agents
• Other strategies that improve uptake and penetration of drugs in the tumor site