Page - (000350) - in Biomedical Chemistry: Current Trends and Developments

3.5.1 Introduction Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the present days, killing millions of people every year (Sutradhar, 2014). Cancer is a pathological problem derived from genetic instability and multiple molecular alterations, caused by uncontrollable cell division which invade the surrounding tissue and destroy it (Mody, 2011). More than 8.2 million people died from cancer in 2012, and around 60% of new cases occurred in Africa and Asia, but 30% of cancers were prevented (WHO, 2014). In 2014, more than 1.6 million new cancer cases and more than half million cancer deaths are estimated to occur in the United States (ACS, 2014). During the most recent 5 years of existing data (2006−2010), delay- adjusted cancer incidence rates declined slightly in men (by 0.6% per year) and were stable in women, while cancer death rates decreased by 1.8% per year in men and by 1.4% per year in women. The combined cancer death rates (deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) have been continuously declining for 2 decades, from 215.1 in 1991 to 171.8 in 2010. This 20% decline translates to the avoidance of more than 1.3 million cancer deaths (almost 1 million among men and more than 0.3 million among women) during this time period (Siegel, 2014). In Europe, around one quarter of the total population is affected by new cancer cases, with about 3.2 million new patients every year (WHO, 2014). Breast, colorectal, lung, liver and stomach cancers are some of the most common cases of cancers. While there have been many advances in cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer, they are still far from being ideal. The problematic issue is to achieve the desired concentration of therapeutic agents at the tumor site, thereby destroying cancer cells, while minimizing the damage to normal cells. In order to overcome some of the problems of conventional anticancer therapeutics, cancer nanotechnology has been implemented, which indicates a major breakthrough in cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer (Misra, 2010). Nanotechnology is one of the fastest areas of growth and development in the 21st century, where several material types (e.g., organic, inorganic, and polymeric based), medicines and devices are