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Liver cancer is a high mortality cancer, and its increasing prevalence is a concern worldwide. Current treatment modalities for liver cancer include chemotherapy and immunotherapy. These therapies provide symptomatic relief and help prolong the lives of patients but are not an absolute cure. In this paper we have explored an alternative approach, drug repurposing, to identify drugs for treating liver cancer. Databases like PubMed, ScienceDirect, and JSTOR were used for literature mining, and the PRISMA 2020 systemic review guidelines were followed to identify drugs that have been trialed for repurposing in liver cancer. The protein receptors and target protein classes of all the drugs were identified using the Swiss Target Prediction tool. Further, the biological interactions and pathways followed by the drugs were studied via protein interaction networks using Cytoscape. Molecular pathways such as Bile acid receptor activity, Inosine-5′-monophosphate (IMP) dehydrogenase activity, JUN kinase activity, Nitric-oxide synthase activity, and Mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase activity were observed to be influenced by these drugs. The fact that the genes targeted by these repurposed drugs are common with the differentially expressed genes in liver cancer is an excellent starting point to verify the current hypothesis.

pH dependent hydrogel formulations of venlafexine HCl were prepared by free radical polymerization method using polyethylene glycol as polymer. Various samples were prepared with varying concentration of polymer, monomer and cross-linker to study their effect on gel swelling, diffusion characteristics and drug release. Swelling was found to be increased with increase in pH. Increase in acrylic acid concentration increases swelling while increase in cross-linker concentration has an opposite effect on swelling. Drug release study was performed in pH 1.2, 5.5 and 7.5 for 12 hours at 37 oC and drug release was found to increase in higher pH. Prepared hydrogel preparations were also characterized by PXRD, TGA, SEM and FTIR.