Liposomes designed to protect the heart during cancer therapy

One of the main advantages of using liposomes to encapsulate anti-cancer drugs is that normal tissues like the heart is protected from harmful effects. Still, liposomal drugs are not the first choice partly because they are not more effective in killing cancer cells. We wanted to add further protection of the heart by adding statins in the liposomes along with the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin. Statin protects the hearts from being damaged by doxorubicin, and to our pleasant surprise, also potentiated the anti-cancer effects. We managed to develop a liposome carrying both statins and doxorubicin, and our liposomes had the same protecting effect on the heart, while retaining the increased ability to kill cancer cells. Although both these drugs can be administered in their free form, liposomal encapsulation is a huge advantage, since both drugs will be equally distributed in the body. Then the heart will be protected, and the cancer cells efficiently killed by the presence of both drugs at the same time.
The results was recently published in International Journal of Pharmaceutics.

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