Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editorial work
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are conventional approaches to cancer treatment. However, both cancer treatments result in adverse side effects, like the development of cardiomyopathies, one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in cancer patients. The situation becomes more critical when a patient with heart disease required chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Cardio-oncology is an emerging field that deals with the heart-related complications associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Researchers are constantly experiencing and reporting a reduction in the risk of cardiotoxicity when patients are treated with cardioprotective agents before or during chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Therefore, drug delivery experts are interested in designing combination therapies of cardio-protective and chemotherapeutic agents to improve the anticancer drugs' efficiency, while reducing the risk of cardiotoxicity. Over the last few decades, several macromolecules (protein, plasmid, DNA, siRNA, etc.), small molecules (permeability transition pore inhibitors, C1 esterase inhibitors, sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i), tyrosine kinase inhibitors, etc.), and phytochemicals have been investigated for their anticancer and/or cardioprotective effects. Hence, novel combination therapies based on these agents are getting the attention of researchers to reduce the cardiotoxicity risk associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Co-delivery of multiple therapeutics at the target site (within a cell) is a challenge that can be solved by pharmaceutical nano-technologies. Several nano-carrier structures including liposomes, exosomes, nano-emulsion, micelles, nano-tubes, quantum dots, etc. have been used by the researchers for the targeted co-delivery of multiple agents. However, there are limitations to incorporating more than one agent in a single nano-carrier system. Hybrid nano-particulate gadgets can be a better option to deliver multiple agents at the target site. Recently, various types of hybrid nano-particulates were designed (exosome-liposome, micelle-liposome, quantum dot-liposome, and micelle-nano-emulsion). However, the quantification of each agent and the full characterization of the hybrid system is challenging due to their complex nano-structure. There are some scientific questions that are expected to be addressed by the researchers, like the scientific reasoning underlying the choice of the drug combo when both agents have different pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics effects or how to adjust the ratio of each agent in the drug combo and the quantification method used for each agent in a cocktail. These designed flows need to be clarified in order to define suitable clinical trials for drug combo delivery, by computing the lower toxic effects of each agent in the mix. With this Research Topic, our aim is to explore novel combination therapies to reduce the cardiotoxicity risk associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We expect manuscripts describing rational approaches in drug combos as well as new hybrid nano-carrier systems for cell-specific (cardiomyocytes and cancer cells) co-delivery of these multiple agents. We count on submissions of a variety of manuscripts, including mini-review, research articles, and general commentary by global experts covering, but not limited to, the following areas of research: • Novel drug combination therapies based on anti-cancer drugs and cardio-protective adjuvants. • Therapeutic and diagnostic (theranostics) agents-based combination therapies for cancer and cardiac treatments. • Novel nano-materials/nano-drug delivery systems/hybrid nano-particulates for targeted delivery of anticancer drugs with cardio-protective adjuvants. • Bio-analytical methods for simultaneous detection of multiple agents (anti-cancer and/or cardio-protective agents). • Novel pre-clinical/clinical trials for drug combo.