Syntheses and cytotoxicity of phosphatidylcholines containing ibuprofen or naproxen moieties

Perspectives of the Application of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in Cancer Therapy: Attempts to Overcome Their Unfavorable Side Effects

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) express anti-tumoral activity mainly by blocking cyclooxygenase-2 involved in the synthesis of prostaglandins. Therefore, in the last few decades, many have attempted to explore the possibilities of applying this group of drugs as effective agents for the inhibition of neoplastic processes. This review summarizes the evidence presented in the literature regarding the anti-tumoral actions of NSAIDs used as monotherapies as well as in combination with conventional chemotherapeutics and natural products. In several clinical trials, it was proven that combinations of NSAIDs and chemotherapeutic drugs (CTDs) were able to obtain suitable results. The combination with phospholipids may resolve the adverse effects of NSAIDs and deliver derivatives with increased antitumor activity, whereas hybrids with terpenoids exhibit superior activity against their parent drugs or physical mixtures. Therefore, the application of NSAIDs in cancer therapy seems to be still an open chapter and requires deep and careful evaluation. The literature's data indicate the possibilities of re-purposing anti-inflammatory drugs currently approved for cancer treatments.

Interactions of Analgesics with Cisplatin: Modulation of Anticancer Efficacy and Potential Organ Toxicity

Cisplatin (CDDP), one of the most eminent cancer chemotherapeutic agents, has been successfully used to treat more than half of all known cancers worldwide. Despite its effectiveness, CDDP might cause severe toxic adverse effects on multiple body organs during cancer chemotherapy, including the kidneys, heart, liver, gastrointestinal tract, and auditory system, as well as peripheral nerves causing severely painful neuropathy. The latter, among other pains patients feel during chemotherapy, is an indication for the use of analgesics during treatment with CDDP. Different types of analgesics, such as acetaminophen, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), and narcotic analgesics, could be used according to the severity of pain. Administered analgesics might modulate CDDP’s efficacy as an anticancer drug. NSAIDS, on one hand, might have cytotoxic effects on their own and few of them can potentiate CDDP’s anticancer effects via inhibiting the CDDP-induced cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme, or through COX-independent mechanisms. On the other hand, some narcotic analgesics might ameliorate CDDP’s anti-neoplastic effects, causing chemotherapy to fail. Concerning safety, some analgesics share the same adverse effects on normal tissues as CDDP, augmenting its potentially hazardous effects on organ impairment. This article offers an overview of the reported literature on the interactions between analgesics and CDDP, paying special attention to possible mechanisms that modulate CDDP’s cytotoxic efficacy and potential adverse reactions.

NSAIDs: Old Acquaintance in the Pipeline for Cancer Treatment and Prevention─Structural Modulation, Mechanisms of Action, and Bright Future

The limitations of current chemotherapeutic drugs are still a major issue in cancer treatment. Thus, targeted multimodal therapeutic approaches need to be strategically developed to successfully control tumor growth and prevent metastatic burden. Inflammation has long been recognized as a hallmark of cancer and plays a key role in the tumorigenesis and progression of the disease. Several epidemiological, clinical, and preclinical studies have shown that traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) exhibit anticancer activities. This Perspective reports the most recent outcomes for the treatment and prevention of different types of cancers for several NSAIDs alone or in combination with current chemotherapeutic drugs. Furthermore, an extensive review of the most promising structural modifications is reported, such as phospho, H₂S, and NO releasing-, selenium-, metal complex-, and natural product-NSAIDs, among others. We also provide a perspective about the new strategies used to obtain more efficient NSAID- or NSAID derivative- formulations for targeted delivery.

Dexibuprofen Therapeutic Advances: Prodrugs and Nanotechnological Formulations

S-(+) enantiomer of ibuprofen (IBU) dexibuprofen (DXI) is known to be more potent than its R-(−) form and exhibits many advantages over the racemic mixture of IBU such as lower toxicity, greater clinical efficacy, and lesser variability in therapeutic effects. Moreover, DXI potential has been recently advocated to reduce cancer development and prevent the development of neurodegenerative diseases in addition to its anti-inflammatory properties. During the last decade, many attempts have been made to design novel formulations of DXI aimed at increasing its therapeutic benefits and minimizing the adverse effects. Therefore, this article summarizes pharmacological information about DXI, its pharmacokinetics, safety, and therapeutic outcomes. Moreover, modified DXI drug delivery approaches are extensively discussed. Recent studies of DXI prodrugs and novel DXI nanoformulations are analyzed as well as reviewing their efficacy for ocular, skin, and oral applications.

Lipase Catalyzed Acidolysis for Efficient Synthesis of Phospholipids Enriched with Isomerically Pure cis-9,trans-11 and trans-10,cis-12 Conjugated Linoleic Acid

The production of phospholipid (PL) conjugates with biologically active compounds is nowadays an extensively employed approach. This type of phospholipids conjugates could improve bioavailability of many poorly absorbed active compounds such as isomers of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which exhibit versatile biological effects. The studies were carried out to elaborate an efficient enzymatic method for the synthesis of phospholipids with pure (>90%) cis-9,trans-11 and trans-10,cis-12 CLA isomers. For this purpose, three commercially available immobilized lipases were examined in respect to specificity towards CLA isomers in acidolysis of egg-yolk phosphatidylcholine (PC). Different incorporation rates were observed for the individual CLA isomers. Under optimal conditions: PC/CLA molar ratio 1:6; Rhizomucor miehei lipase loading 24% wt. based on substrates; heptane; DMF, 5% (v/v); water activity (aw), 0.11; 45 °C; magnetic stirring, 300 rpm; 48 h., effective incorporation (EINC) of CLA isomers into PC reached ca. 50%. The EINC of CLA isomers was elevated for 25–30% only by adding a water mimic (DMF) and reducing aw to 0.11 comparing to the reaction system performed at aw = 0.23. The developed method of phosphatidylcholine acidolysis is the first described in the literature dealing with isometrically pure CLA and allow to obtain very high effective incorporation.

Arylpropionic acid-derived NSAIDs: New insights on derivatization, anticancer activity and potential mechanism of action

NSAIDs displayed chemopreventive and anticancer effects against several types of cancers. Moreover, combination of NSAIDs with anticancer agents resulted in enhanced anticancer activity. These findings have attracted much attention of researchers working in this field. The 2-arylpropionic acid-derived NSAIDs represent one of the most widely used anti-inflammatory agents. Additionally, they displayed antiproliferative activities against different types of cancer cells. Large volume of research was performed to identify molecular targets responsible for this activity. However, the exact mechanism underlying the anticancer activity of profens is still unclear. In this review article, the anticancer potential, structure activity relationship and synthesis of selected profen derivatives were summarized. This review is focused also on non-COX targets which can mediate the anticancer activity of this derivatives. The data in this review highlighted profens as promising lead compounds in future research to develop potent and safe anticancer agents.