This review defines chemotherapeutic engineering as an engineering discipline that applies and further develops chemical engineering principles, techniques and devices for chemotherapy of cancer and other diseases. It provides new challenges as well as new opportunities for chemical engineering. Chemical engineering has substantially changed the human civilization through its services and products to improve the quality of life for human being. It is now time for chemical engineering to contribute to the most important aspect of the quality of life-human health care. Cancer and cardiovascular diseases are the leading causes for deaths. Chemotherapy is one of the most important treatments currently available for cancer and other diseases such as cardiovascular diseases. The present status of chemotherapy is far from being satisfactory. Its efficacy is limited and patients have to suffer from serious side effects, some of which are life-threatening. Chemotherapeutic engineering is emerging to help solving the problems in chemotherapy and to eventually develop an ideal way to conduct chemotherapy with the best efficacy and the least side effects. This review gives, from an engineering point of view, brief introductions to cancer and cancer treatment, chemotherapy and the problems involved in chemotherapy, and the possible roles of chemical engineering in solving the problems involved. Progress in developing various controlled and targeted drug delivery systems is reviewed with an emphasis on nanoparticles of biodegradable polymers and lipid bilayer vesicles (liposomes). Preparation, characterization, in vitro release, cell line experiments and animal testing of drug-loaded polymeric nanoparticles are described with paclitaxel as a prototype drug, which is one of the best anticancer drugs found in nature. A novel drug delivery system, liposomes-in-microspheres, is used as an example for possible combinations of the existing polymer- and lipid-based delivery systems. Research of molecular interactions between the drug and the cell membrane is also reviewed, with the lipid monolayer at the air-water or oil-water interface and bilayer vesicles as models for the cell membrane. Finally, mathematical modeling in chemotherapeutic engineering is discussed with typical examples in the literature. This review is a short introduction of chemotherapeutic engineering to chemical engineers, biomedical engineers, other engineers, clinical oncologists, and pharmaceutical scientists, who are interested in developing new dosage forms of drugs for chemotherapy of cancer and other diseases with the best efficacy and the least side effects. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.