Melanoma is an aggressive type of pores and skin most cancers with a excessive mortality price as soon as it metastasizes. Localized chemotherapy is usually an possibility solely within the early phases (in situ melanoma) or as a postoperative therapy following surgical elimination of suspicious lesions. Medication equivalent to Imiquimod, 5-Fluorouracil, Dacarbazine, and Doxorubicin have been examined for this goal, exhibiting promising results. Extra not too long ago, researchers have been exploring the potential of steel nanoparticles, each as standalone therapies and as drug carriers.
Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have gained explicit consideration in nanomedicine, drug supply, and theranostics on account of their broad antimicrobial and anti-tumor properties. Their pharmacological results, nonetheless, are carefully tied to their “floor performance.”
Research recommend that negatively charged, spherical AgNPs are usually much less poisonous than their positively charged or irregularly formed counterparts (equivalent to rods or wires). Nevertheless, this diminished toxicity additionally means they are usually much less efficient as anti-cancer brokers.
Trendy pharmaceutical improvement more and more emphasizes eco-friendly, or “inexperienced,” applied sciences that eradicate the necessity for poisonous solvents and reagents. This research utilized one such method, using Camellia sinensis (inexperienced tea leaves) as a pure lowering agent for silver ions.
To reinforce each antimicrobial and anti-tumor exercise, the AgNPs had been additional conjugated with chlorhexidine (Cx+), a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent and cationic surfactant. The outcomes had been putting: the AgNP-Cx+ complexes demonstrated considerably stronger antimicrobial properties, an 18-fold enhance in anti-melanoma exercise, and 3 times better tumor selectivity in comparison with non-functionalized AgNPs.
Maybe probably the most vital consequence of this analysis, not too long ago revealed in Pharmacia, was the event of an adhesive patch prototype for topical software of the AgNP-Cx+ complicated. The chosen polymers—Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and Eudragit® RS—didn’t intrude with the antiproliferative motion of the lively agent. In reality, they helped double its exercise whereas enhancing tumor selectivity even additional.
Journal Reference:
Ivanova, N. A., et. al. (2025) Anti-melanoma exercise of green-produced nanosilver-chlorhexidine complicated. Pharmacia. doi.org/10.3897/pharmacia.72.e143419
