As expected, the lower cytotoxicity exhibited by curcumin-loaded nanoparticles, when com-pared with free curcumin, occurred probably due to the encapsulation of curcumin into nanoparticles, rendering the drug less available to act on the cells. However, the cytotoxic effect of curcumin-loaded nanoparticles showed a significant increase at higher exposition times(48and72h),probably due to the release of the encapsulated drugovertime