Design of etoposide polymeric forms

Abstract

The present work relates to the field of pharmacology and medicine, in particular, to a new generation of anticancer drugs based on biocompatible polymers containing etoposide as the drug substance. A polymeric composition containing a surfactant and cryoprotective agent in addition to polymer and drug substance was designed. The optimum formulation of the polymeric composition and process conditions for its preparation were selected. The samples of etoposide polymeric forms were found to exhibit in vitro cytotoxic activity against two human tumor cell lines, viz., MCF-7 breast adenocarcinoma and K562 myeloleukemia cell lines, which was either identical or higher than the activity of free etoposide. The samples of the PLGA-based polymeric form of etoposide exhibited the highest activity.