An implantable and controlled drug-release silk fibroin nanofibrous matrix to advance the treatment of solid tumour cancers

The development of more effective cancer therapeutic strategies are still critically required. The maximization of the therapeutic effect in combination with avoiding the severe side effects on normal tissues when using chemotherapy drugs is still an urgent problem that requires improvements urgently. Here we provide implantable and controllable drug-release that utilises silk fibroin (SF) as a nanofibrous drug delivery system (DDS) for cancer treatment. A nanofibrous structure with controllable fibre diameter (<100 nm) was produced. The drug release rate of the SF DDS was controlled by applying a post-treatment process. In vitro anti-cancer (HCT116) results indicated that curcumin (CM)-SF nanofibrous matrix had a superior anti-cancer potential when the concentration was >5 μg/mL. The mechanism could be explained by the cell cycle being held in the S phase. The toxic effect on normal cells (NCM460) was minimized by using a treatment concentration range (5-20 μg/mL). Implantation of this DDS into the tumour site inhibited the growth of solid tumour; this offers an alternative approach for novel cancer therapy.