Bone cancer or
osteosarcoma is an aggressive
cancer affecting the long bones and is treated by a combination of surgery and
chemotherapy. Local
drug delivery directly to the site of
bone cancer and the use of plant-based drugs has been explored towards improving the efficacy and decreasing the toxicity of the anti-
cancer drugs.
Curcumin, derived from turmeric is highly effective against
cancer cells and shows very low toxicity against normal cells. Bone repair is facilitated by use of
bone substitutes such as bioceramics, amongst which the carbonated
apatite (CA) nanocarriers closely mimic the natural bone
mineral. In the current work, we have developed CA nanocarriers based local delivery of
curcumin as an adjunct treatment for
bone cancer. CA nanocarriers with 6 wt.%
carbonate were prepared by wet chemical synthesis using synthetic derived (6SWCA) and eggshell derived (6EWCA) precursors along with
hydroxyapatite (WHA) as a control. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns showed the CAs to be phase pure with a mean crystallite size of 17 nm. The Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of both CAs indicated the
carbonate substitution as B-Type. The amount of
carbonate substitution was observed to be around 6 wt.% using FTIR and CHNO elemental analyzer. The 6EWCA showed a greater loading (36%) and release (66%) of
curcumin than 6SWCA and WHA nanocarriers. The
bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein denaturation assay showed the
curcumin loaded CAs to be highly anti-inflammatory while their anti-
cancer activity was confirmed by the high cytotoxic activity against MG-63 human
osteosarcoma cells. Conclusively, an eggshell derived
apatite drug delivery system was found to be very suitable to cure
osteosarcoma, prevent post-
cancer inflammation and modulate bone repair and regeneration.