Is loading Anti-Angiogenic Factors on drug delivery systems effective in the process of killing cancerous cells? Would it limit the delivery of nutrients to the tumor?
It is needless to say that anti-VEGF agent exhibit the therapeutic effect. It has been widely accepted in the clinical settings that bevacizumab, the monoclonal antibody against human VEGF, is effective for the treatment for the patients with metastatic colon cancer. There are two important points you have to keep in mind.
Firstly, the neoangiogenesis of the tumor tissue depends only on VEGF, whereas that becomes to depend on not only VEGF but also other cytokines such as FGF-2, TGF-beta, and PIGF at the later stage of solid tumor.
Secondly, what determines the distribution of the therapeutic agent and oxygen concentrations does not depend on the amount of the intra-tumor blood. Those depend on the distribution of the blood vessels in the tumor microenvironment. The temporal and spatial intra-tumoral heterogeneity of the blood vessels makes it challenging to improve the drug delivery system.
The father of the field of angiogenesis passed away 10 years ago and this review might be of interest: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13203
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