Chemotherapy is one line for treatment of various cancers. Various chemotherapeutic agents which are used for this are associated with cytotoxic effects on cancer cells as well as on normal cells. Paclitaxel is a potent chemotherapeutic agent used in the treatment of various malignancies. Along with its limited bioavailability due to its poor aqueous solubility, it also shows deleterious effects on various organs. Solid Lipid Nanoparticles (SLNs) are colloidal carriers which shown a promising utility in the delivery of various drugs in controlled manner with high degree of specificity. In this study paclitaxel SLNs were prepared using stearic acid and its combination with phospholipid, which were subjected to various evaluation studies. Drug entrapment was found to be 38.90 to 62.20 and 32.80 to 51.29 percent for stearic acid and its combination with phospholipid respectively. At the end of 48 hrs in vitro drug release found to be 69.50% to 79.35 % and 64.88% to 73.55% for stearic acid and its combination with phospholipid respectively. Biodistribution studies in EAC xenografted mouse model showed that SLNs significantly decreased the uptake in organs like liver, spleen and lung while increasing the uptake in tumor tissues after injection compared with pure drug. Moreover, the SLNs prepared with combination of lipids showed greater tumor growth inhibition effect in in-vivo studies. Study showed that the breast cancer tumor specificity of paclitaxel can be improved by delivering it in SLN.
