Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women. In order to prevent the occurrence of metastases and the recurrence of tumors, a hydrogel breast implant loaded with cisplatin chitosan microparticles is to be produced in the presented study.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a solid tumor that exhibits severe angiogenesis, cell cycle dysregulation, and evasion of apoptosis. Late diagnosis in a large proportion of patients is making the carcinomas inoperable, and various chemotherapeutic agents are used. Due to the numerous side effects of known chemotherapeutic agents, intensive research is performed on the use of natural products and their synthetic analogues. The authors of the presented study investigated the effect of carboxymethyl chitosan oligosaccharides on the growth of hepatocellular tumors in mice.

231 articles about chitosan and chitosan derivatives have been published in May and June 2013. The main topics focused on animal and human studies and on chitosan-based nanoparticles and pharmaceutical preparations. Moreover, the physico-chemical properties and pH sensitivity of various chitosan derivatives were intensively studied. Among the top nations of chitosan research are again: China (76 articles), USA (30) and India (14).