Solid Lipid Nanoparticles and Nanostructured Lipid Carriers for Anticancer Phytochemical Delivery: Advances, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Summary

This narrative review examines solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carriers as delivery systems for anticancer phytochemicals, addressing the poor bioavailability and instability that limit their clinical application. The review compares formulation methods, characterization approaches, and discusses how encapsulation of phytochemicals such as curcumin and quercetin improves therapeutic efficacy whilst reducing toxicity, with particular emphasis on co-delivery strategies and hybrid lipid-polymer systems as next-generation carriers. The authors highlight formulation challenges, recent patent innovations, and call for scalable, stimuli-responsive designs and regulatory harmonization to enable clinical translation.

Regional applicability

This is a preclinical pharmaceutical nanotechnology review without geographic specificity. The findings are globally applicable to pharmaceutical development pipelines and would be relevant to United Kingdom and international regulatory frameworks (EMA, MHRA) for nanocarrier-based drug development, though clinical translation requires jurisdiction-specific approvals.

Key measures

Solubility, bioavailability, chemical stability, cellular uptake, therapeutic efficacy, systemic toxicity, formulation parameters, and patent filings for lipid-based nanocarriers

Outcomes reported

The review evaluated how solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) improve solubility, stability, bioavailability and therapeutic efficacy of anticancer phytochemicals including curcumin, quercetin, resveratrol, silymarin and naringenin. It assessed formulation methods, in vitro characterization, co-delivery strategies, and hybrid lipid-polymer carriers as next-generation platforms.

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