nab-Paclitaxel and its potential role in pancreatic cancer
Back in 2009 at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Molecular Targets meeting, a researcher (Anirban Maitra) from Boston had a most interesting poster about the use of nanotechnology to deliver nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) to pancreatic adenocarcinomas in a more targeted fashion. You can read about it in more detail from the meeting coverage at that time.
Essentially, one of the things that stops chemotherapy being more effective in advanced pancreatic cancer is that the stromal layer forms a physical, almost impenetrable layer, that slows drugs from getting through to the tumour.