October 2016
Intermediate to advanced
218 pages
7h 18m
English
G. Caruso, L. Merlo and M. Caffo, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
This chapter introduces a potential definitive treatment in the struggle against malignant brain tumors. In spite of successful steps in biomedical research, brain glioblastomas remain a death sentence in all cases. The difficulty in overcoming the blood–brain barrier (BBB) is the biggest obstacle for chemotherapeutics, which cannot reach the tumor bed as efficacious doses. The advent of nanotechnology could revolutionize the approach to that. Nanoparticles are versatile, thanks to their particular chemical configuration, and are able to go through the BBB carrying drugs or genes targeted against brain tumors. ...