Abstract
Microemulsions, isotropic mixture of oil, water, surfactant and most frequently cosurfactant, have been involved recently for solubilizing many anticancer drugs in order to improve their efficacy and reduce their side effects. The antitumor effects of three microemulsion formulas were evaluated against MCF-7 breast cancer cells, blank microemulsion (ME1), freshly prepared docetaxelloadedmicroemulsion (ME2) and stored docetaxel-loaded-microemulsion for around two weeks (ME3). It has been found that their cytotoxicity, determined by the sulphorhodamine B (SRB) assay, were more than Taxotere at 1 and 10 ae M. However, among the microemulsion formulations, there were no significant differences at the same concentrations. At 5 ae M, there were significant differences between Taxotere and both of ME2 and ME3 but there were no significant differences between ME1 and Taxotere. According to the light microscopy images and FITC apoptosis detection kit, microemulsion formulations induced apoptosis in MCF-7 cells. Results of study revealed that the microemulsion formula improved the efficiency of docetaxel against MCF-7 cells.