Recent advances in the delivery of disulfiram: a critical analysis of promising approaches to improve its pharmacokinetic profile and anticancer efficacy

Background

Disulfiram (DSF) has a long history of being used as a first-line promising therapy for treatment of alcoholism in human. Besides its prominence in the treatment of alcoholism, extensive investigations have been carried out to explore other biomedical and pharmacological effects of DSF. Amongst other biomedical implications, plenty researches have shown evidence of promising anticancer efficacy of this agent for treatment of wide range of cancers such as breast cancer, liver cancer and lung carcinoma.

Methods

Electronic databases, including Google scholar, PubMed and Web of science were searched with the keywords disulfiram, nanoparticles, cancer, drug delivery systems.

Result

Despite its excellent anticancer efficacy, the pharmaceutical significance and clinical applicability of DSF are hampered due to poor stability, low solubility, short plasma half-life, rapid metabolism, and early clearance from systemic circulation. Various attempts have been made to eradicate these issues. Nanotechnology based interventions have gained remarkable recognition in improving pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile of DSF by improving its stability and avoiding its degradation.

Conclusion

The aim of the present review is to critically analyse all recent developments in designing various nanotechnology-based delivery systems, to ponder their relevance in improving stability, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile, and achieving target-specific delivery of this agent to cancer cells to effectively eradicate cancer and abolish its metastasis. Nanotechnology is a novel approach for overcoming such obstacles faced presently, the results obtained so far using different novel drug delivery systems seem to be very promising to increase the stability and half-life of DSF.

Download the full article as a PDF here or read it here

Article Information: Muhammad Asim Farooq, Md Aquib, Daulat Haleem Khan, Zahid Hussain, Anam Ahsan, Mirza Muhammad Faran Ashraf Baig, Dickson Pius Wande, Muhammad Masood Ahmad, Hafiz Muhammad Ahsan, Jiang Jiajie, Bo Wang; DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, November 2019.

See more on Vitamin E TGPS in our excipients database