Targeting nanodrug delivery of retinoic acid in cancer treatment in in vivo studies: A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression

Retinoic acid is a derivative of vitamin A and plays an important role in growth and differentiation during the developmental stages of vertebrates. The goal of developing nanosystems, which generally consist of drugs, polymers, and targeting ligands such as antibodies, is the controlled release of the drug and maintaining the concentration of the drug in the therapeutic range for a suitable period of time, as well as the specific transfer of the drug to the target tissue. Therefore, the present study is a systematic review and meta-analysis study with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of targeted nanodrug delivery of retinoic acid in cancer treatment in in vivo studies. Materials and methods: In this study, a search was conducted in Scopus, Web of science, Pubmed and Google Scholar search engines. In the search of keywords such as nanoparticles, retinoic acid, drug delivery and cancer along with their Mesh terms, were done without time limit. The search was done according to the PRISMA protocol. The process of searching for articles was done until the end of August ۲۰۲۲. Results: After searching, ۴۷۳ articles were found. Out of the ۴۷۳ articles found, ۴۸ articles were removed due to duplication, out of the remaining ۴۲۵ articles, ۳۸۵ articles were removed due to irrelevance and ۳۱ articles were removed due to lack of access to the full text and other reasons according to the Inclusion and Exclusion criteria, and finally ۹ studies were included in the meta-analysis process. Out of the ۹ present articles, ۳ articles on breast cancer, ۲ articles on skin cancer, and Regarding tumor angiogenesis, bone cancer, thyroid cancer and xenogeneic KB tumor, respectively, one article was in the desired field. Conclusion: Based on the results, loading nanoparticles with retinoic acid increases the anti-tumor effects (including reducing the weight and size of the tumor) of retinoic acid and leads to specific targeting of cancer cells and longer drug retention in the target tissue.

Keywords:

nanoparticles , retinoic acid , drug delivery , cancer