Iranian scientists have developed a biodestructible polymer that may be used as a targetable drug carrier system for chemotherapy.

Iran's Minister of Science, Research and Technology has said that a team of Iranian researchers with the Polymer and Petrochemical Research Center and Amir Kabir University has managed to develop the polymer.

He added that the polymer solidifies after injection and reaching the tumor site and it is destructed and exerted after it delivers chemotherapy agents to malignant cells.

The new system made from polycaprolactone-folate can be used as a carrier for tamoxifen citrate, a commonly used chemotherapy drug in breast cancer patients. It helps the sustained release of the drug in the patients.

No side effects have so far been reported for the polymer.

PKH/RE