Poly(ethylene glycol) amphiphilic copolymer for anticancer drugs delivery.

Poly(ethylene glycol) is a water-soluble polymer. Due to its high safety and biocompatibility, it has been widely used to prepare amphiphilic copolymers for drug delivery. These copolymers can enhance water-solubility of hydrophobic drugs, improve their pharmacokinetic parameters and control their release from corresponding nanocarriers formed by its self-assembly. Anticancer drugs have some shortcomings such as lower water-solubility, bad targeting and some serious side-effects, which limit their applications and are dangerous to patients. So encapsulation of anticancer drugs into nanocarriers originated from its copolymeric derivates can improve their absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion with better release properties and activities against cancer cells, increase their therapeutic effects, and realize their passive or active target delivery through structure modification. Recent research development of its drug delivery systems for anticancer drugs will be discussed.