The enhancement of radiotherapy efficacy with docetaxel-titanate nanotubes as a new nanohybrid for localized high risk prostate cancer

International audienceFrom 30% to 50% of high risk prostate cancer patients who undergo radiation therapy (RT) will have a biochemical failure. These failures are either due to a poor local control or to distant disease which may also be related to a local failure. Taxane-based chemotherapy has proved to be useful in prostate cancer. Combining chemotherapy, such as docetaxel (DXL), with RT can enhance its efficiency, however systemic injection of the classical formulation leads to 95% uptake by healthy tissues whereas 2−5% only reach tumors; adverse side effects are a crucial problem. Moreover, multidrug resistance mechanisms often limit drug efficacy by decreasing tumor cell intracellular concentration of drugs. There is interest to develop nanocarrier of DXL to maintain drug inside cancer cells by improving its efficacy. In a previous in vitro study, we have highlighted that titanate nanotubes (TiONTs) which have a needle shape can enter and stay inside cancer cells until 10 days without cytotoxic effects induction. We suggest in this study to develop TiONt-DXL nanocarrier and to evaluate its in vivo biodistribution as well as its efficacy in association with RT on a prostate cancer model