Efficacy of the oral fluorouracil pro-drug capecitabine in cancer treatment: a review

Capecitabine (Xeloda) was developed as a pro-drug of fluorouracil (FU), with the aim of improving tolerability and intratumor drug concentrations through its tumorspecific conversion to the active drug. The purpose of this paper is to review the available information on capecitabine, focusing on its clinical effectiveness against various carcinomas. Identification of all eligible English trails was made by searching the PubMed and Cochrane databases from 1980 to 2007. Search terms included capecitabine, Xeloda and cancer treatment. Nowadays, FDA has approved the use of capecitabine as a first line therapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer when single-agent fluoropyrimidine is preferred. The drug is also approved for use as a single agent in metastatic breast cancer patients who are resistant to both anthracycline and paclitaxel-based regimens or when further anthracycline treatment is contraindicated. It is also approved in combination with docetaxel after failure of prior anthracycline-based chemotherapy. In patients with prostate, pancreatic, renal cell and ovarian carcinomas, capecitabine as a single-agent or in combination with other drugs has also shown benefits. Improved tolerability and comparable efficacy, compared with the intravenous FU/LV combination, in addition to its oral administration, make capecitabine an attractive option for the treatment of several types of carcinomas.     

Structural characteristics of different types of nanoparticles synthesised in mesomorphic metal alkanoates

The class of thermotropic ionic liquid crystals (LCs) of the metal alkanoates possesses a number of unique properties, such as intrinsic ionic conductivity, high dissolving ability and ability to form time-stable mesomorphic glasses. These ionic LCs can be used as nanoreactors for the synthesis and stabilisation of different types of nanoparticles (NPs). Thus, some semiconductors, metals and core/shell NPs were chemically synthesised in the thermotropic ionic liquid crystalline phase (smectic A) of the cadmium octanoate (CdC₈) and of the cobalt octanoate (CoC₈). By applying the scanning electron microscopy, the cadmium and cobalt octanoate composites containing CdS, Au, Ag and core/shell Au/CdS NPs have been studied. NPs’ sizes and dispersion distribution of the NPs’ size in the nanocomposites have been obtained.