Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Evaluation of clinical effectiveness of paclitaxel and ursolic acid co-loaded liposomes as enhanced treatment for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Bi-Hua Lv¹, Wei Tan², Xuejun Shang³, Ling Zhang⁴

¹Department of Pharmacy, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubein 430071; ²Department of Radiology, Hospital of Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430081; ³Department of Andrology, Jinling Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing 210002; ⁴Department of Environmental Hygiene and Occupational Medicine, School of Public Health, Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China.

For correspondence:- Ling Zhang Email: zhangling@wust.edu.cn

Accepted: 30 October 2018 Published: 30 November 2018

Citation: Lv B, Tan W, Shang X, Zhang L. Evaluation of clinical effectiveness of paclitaxel and ursolic acid co-loaded liposomes as enhanced treatment for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(11):2115-2121 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i11.1

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To enhance the clinical effectiveness of paclitaxel (PTX) by co-delivery with ursolic acid (UA) for the treatment of head and neck cancer

Methods: Co-loaded liposomes of PTX and UA (UA-PTX-LiP) were prepared by thin-film hydration method. Their size and loading efficiency were determined using dynamic light scattering (DLS) technique and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), respectively. The effectiveness of UA-PTX-LiP against HSC-3 human head and neck cancer cell-lines was compared with that of PTX liposome (PTX-LiP) using systemic cell-based in vitro evaluation with MTT assay. Fluorescent microscopy was used for cell uptake studies.

Results: The size of the prepared UA-PTX-LiP was 126.5 ± 3.22 nm. The ratiometric system for PTX and UA as liposomes revealed significantly enhanced cytotoxicity, with comparatively lower IC₅₀, when compared to individual PTX-Lip. Fluorescent microscopy revealed the internalization ability of UA-PTX-LiP by targeted delivery of PTX in HSC-3 human head and neck cancer cell-line.

Conclusion: These results show that UA-PTX-LiP successfully enhances the therapeutic potential and clinical outcomes of PTX in head-and-neck cancer, and also demonstrate the useful effect of combination of UA and PTX in chemotherapy.

Keywords: Paclitaxel, Ursolic acid, Combination chemotherapy, Head-and-neck squamous cancer