A biodegradable hydrogel system containing curcumin encapsulated in micelles for cutaneous wound healing.

Curcumin as a wound healing agent.

Recent studies indicate that Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can play an important role in the whole course of cancer treatment such as recovery stages of post-operative, radiotherapy or chemotherapy stages instead of only terminal stage of cancer. In this review, we have summarized current evidence for using TCM as adjuvant cancer treatment in different stages of cancer lesions. Some TCMs (e.g., TJ-41, Liu-jun-zi-tang, PHY906, Coumarin, and Aescine) are capable of improving the post-operative symptoms such as fatigue, pain, appetite, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and lymphedema. Some TCMs (e.g., Ginseng, Huang-Qi, BanZhiLian, TJ-48, Huachansu injection, Shenqi fuzheng injection, and Kanglaite injection) in combination with chemo- or radio-therapy are capable of enhancing the efficacy of and diminishing the side effects and complications caused by chemo- and radiotherapy. Taken together, they have great advantages in terms of suppressing tumor progression, relieving surgery complications, increasing the sensitivity of chemo- and radio- therapeutics, improving an organism's immune system function, and lessening the damage caused by surgery, chemo- or radio-therapeutics. They have significant effects on relieving breast cancer-related lymphedema, reducing cancer-related fatigue and pain, improving radiation pneumonitis and gastrointestinal side effects, protecting liver function, and even ameliorating bone marrow suppression. This review of those medicines should contribute to an understanding of Chinese herbal medicines as an adjunctive therapy in the whole course of cancer treatment instead of only terminal stage of cancer, by providing useful information for development of more effective anti-cancer drugs and making more patients "survival with cancer" for a long time.

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The advantages of using traditional Chinese medicine as an adjunctive therapy in the whole course of cancer treatment instead of only terminal stage of cancer

Polymeric mixed micelles as nanomedicines: Achievements and perspectives

Polymeric drug delivery systems have been achieved great development in the last two decades. Polymeric drug delivery has defined as a formulation or a device that enables the introduction of a therapeutic substance into the body. Biodegradable and bio-reducible polymers make the magic possible choice for lot of new drug delivery systems. The future prospects of the research for practical applications has required for the development in the field. Natural polymers such as arginine, chitosan, dextrin, polysaccharides, poly (glycolic acid), poly (lactic acid), and hyaluronic acid have been treated for polymeric drug delivery systems. Synthetic polymers such as poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate), poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)s, poly(ethylenimine)s, dendritic polymers, biodegradable and bio-absorbable polymers have been also discussed for polymeric drug delivery. Targeting polymeric drug delivery, biomimetic and bio-related polymeric systems, and drug-free macromolecular therapeutics have also treated for polymeric drug delivery. In polymeric gene delivery systems, virial vectors and non-virial vectors for gene delivery have briefly analyzed. The systems of non-virial vectors for gene delivery are polyethylenimine derivatives, polyethylenimine copolymers, and polyethylenimine conjugated bio-reducible polymers, and the systems of virial vectors are DNA conjugates and RNA conjugates for gene delivery. The development of polymeric drug delivery systems that have based on natural and synthetic polymers are rapidly emerging to pharmaceutical fields. The fruitful progresses have made in the application of biocompatible and bio-related copolymers and dendrimers to cancer treatment, including their use as delivery systems for potent anticancer drugs. Combining perspectives from the synthetic and biological fields will provide a new paradigm for the design of polymeric drug and gene delivery systems.

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Recent advances in polymeric drug delivery systems

Fighting fire with fire: poisonous Chinese herbal medicine for cancer therapy.

Curcumin, a low-molecular-weight natural polyphenol mainly found in the plant Curcuma longa (turmeric), is widely used as a food colorant and as a potential protective agent against several chronic diseases including cancer, HIV-infection, neurological, cardiovascular, and skin diseases. Moreover, evidences from long-term use process and preclinical trials have demonstrated low toxicity of curcumin, even at relatively high doses. However, it has been well known that the application of curcumin was limited owing to its water insolubility, instability, and poor bioavailability. For decades, many attempts have been made to compensate for these disadvantages, with the development of improved delivery platforms as the feasible approaches. The past ten years witnessed the encouraging progress in the use of nanoscale drug delivery systems on curcumin such as loading curcumin into liposomes or nanoparticles, forming self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems (SMEDDS), cyclodextrin inclusions, and solid dispersions, as well as the latest reported technologies such as nadodisks and nanotubes. This paper summarizes the recent works on the design and development of nanoscale delivery systems of curcumin, with the goal of harnessing the true difficulties of thismultifunctional agent in the clinical arena.

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Nanotechnologies for curcumin: an ancient puzzler meets modern solutions

Zedoary turmeric oil and its main active ingredient β-elemene are novel plant-derived anticancer agents with long-term clinical application history and low toxicity, which have been approved by the Chinese SFDA to treat different tumors including cancers of the brain, ovary, prostate, breast, lungs, liver, colon, and other tissues. Unfortunately, their hydrophobic properties, poor stabilities and low bioavailabilities seriously hamper their applications in clinic. Therefore, more attention should be paid to develop novel drug delivery systems for zedoary turmeric oil and β-elemene to enhance their overall quality. Recently, increased research has been carried out on a nanoparticle drug delivery system of zedoary turmeric oil and β-elemene to solve their poor aqueous solubilities and low bioavailabilities in vivo with much remarkable achievements springing up in the last decade. This review presents the novel nanoparticle formulations of zedoary turmeric oil and β-elemene and introduces the possible future prospects of their further study.

Applications of nanoparticles in herbal medicine: zedoary turmeric oil and its active compound β-elemene

Abstract The Huangqi Guizhi Wuwu Decoction(HQGZWWT) is composed of Huangqi (Astragali Radix), Shaoyao (Paeoniae Radix Alba), Guizhi (Cinnamomi Ramulus), Shengjiang (Zingiberis Rhizoma Recens), and Dazao (Jujubae Fructus) which has various pharmacological anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antioxidant, antitumor, lipid-lowering, and immunity-regulating activities. It has certain advantages in the treatment of orthopaedic diseases, such as cervical spondylosis, scapulohumeral periarthritis, lumbar disc herniation, knee osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, myofascial pain syndrome, etc., with outstanding clinical efficacy, few adverse reactions, and high patient compliance. However, modern pharmacological researches on the whole prescription of HQGZWWT are insufficient and the therapeutic targets are not clear which needs further exploration. Besides, this prescription cannot treat all orthopaedic diseases, so we should adhere to the thinking of four diagnostics in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), select prescriptions based on syndrome differentiation, closely follow the pathogenesis, innovate and expand its scope of application, reflect the application advantages of this prescription in orthopaedics and traumatology and improve the total clinical efficiency.

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Miao Tan

Papers

Fighting fire with fire: poisonous Chinese herbal medicine for cancer therapy.

Nanotechnologies for curcumin: an ancient puzzler meets modern solutions

Applications of nanoparticles in herbal medicine: zedoary turmeric oil and its active compound β-elemene

Application of Huangqi Guizhi Wuwu Decoction in Orthopaedics and Traumatology