Table 1.

A summary of the literature reports on anticancer drugs entrapped in HNTs.

Anti-Cancer Drug	Cancer Type	Drug Loading Method	HNTs Modification	Therapeutic Effect	References
Doxorubicin	Breast cancer	Immersion method	HNTs surface-modified with folic acid (FA) through PEG linker	Inhibited proliferation and induced death of MFC-7 cells	[33]
Doxorubicin	Tumors with overexpression of FA receptor	Immersion method	HNTs conjugated with magnetic particles (Fe3O4) and FA	Enhanced toxicity to HeLa cells	[42]
Doxorubicin	Breast cancer	Immersion method	HNTs grafted with chitosan oligosaccharide (COS)	Inhibited proliferation and induced death of MFC-7 cells	[44]
Doxorubicin	Acute myeloid leukemia	Immersion method	Loading HNTs with gold nanorods (GNRs) and conjugating them with FA via reaction. with bovine serum albumin (BSA).	Inhibited proliferation and induced death of MFC-7 cells, decreased drug toxicity	[45]
	Cervical cancer   Colon cancer   Hepatocellular carcinoma	Immersion method	HNTs immobilized with drug-loaded liposomes surface-modified with E-selectin	Increased number of MCF7 and COLO 205 cells captured	[46]
	Lung cancer   Prostate cancer Melanoma	Immersion method	HNTs coated by thermal spraying of DOX loaded HNTs ethanol dispersion and conjugated with anti-EpCAM antibody	Enhanced toxicity to HeLa cells	[47]
Curcumin	Breast cancer Acute myeloid leukemia	Drug covalently attached to the HNTs surface	Microwave-assisted synthesis of HNTs conjugated with curcumin- HNTs modified with 3-Aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) or 3-Glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) by electrospinning	Enhanced toxicity to SUM 149, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell lines also to HL60 and HL60R myeloid leukemia cell lines	[48,49]
Resveratrol	Breast cancer	Vaccume pump method	HNTs were coated with polyelectrolytes (PAH or PRM and PSS or DXS) using LbL method	Restrained proliferation and induced death of MFC-7 cells	[43]
Celecoxib	Colon cancer	Immersion method	HNTs modified with pH-responsive microspheres	Inhibited proliferation of colon cancer cells	[50]
Atorvastatin	Colon cancer	Immersion method	HNTs modified with pH-responsive microspheres	Inhibited proliferation of colon cancer cells	[50]
Methotrexate	Osteosarcoma	Immersion method	no further modifications	Induced apoptosis and significantly inhibited proliferation of cancer cells	[51,52]
Artemisinin	Osteosarcoma	Immersion method	no further modifications	Induced apoptosis and significantly inhibited proliferation of cancer cells	[51]
Quercetin	Osteosarcoma	Immersion method	no further modifications	Induced apoptosis and significantly inhibited proliferation of cancer cells	[51]
Taurolidine	Osteosarcoma	Immersion method	no further modifications	Induced apoptosis and significantly inhibited proliferation of cancer cells	[51]
Camptothecin	Colon cancer	Surface attachment of the drug	HNTs modified with magnetic particles (FeCl3∙6H2O and FeSO4∙7H2O) then conjugated with COS, Camptothecin (CPT), and FA	Induced apoptosis of Caco-2 cancer cells	[28]