Abstract

CANCER NANOTHERANOSTICS: AN ADVANCED APPROACH FOR CANCER IMAGING AND THERAPY

Khadeeja Nizamudeen, Sowparnika Treasa Sabu* and Shaiju S. Dharan

Abstract

Background: Despite the wide range of knowledge and information about cancer and advances in its treatment, still it is among the leading cause of mortality. In this regard, nanomedicines can play a vital role by improving the bio-distribution and the target site delivery of chemotherapeutics. Nanotheranostics is an emerging science that holds tremendous potential as a contrivance by integrating therapy and imaging in a single probe for cancer diagnosis and treatment thus offering the advantage like tumor-specific drug delivery and at the same time reduced side effects to normal tissues. The recent surge in nanomedicine research has also paved the way for multimodal theranostic nanoprobe towards personalized therapy through interaction with a specific biological system. Potential applications of nanotheranostic medicines are assessment of drug biodistribution, site-targeted drug delivery, and visualization of drug release at the delivery site. These applications help to optimize the strategies based on triggered drug release and the prediction of therapeutic responses. In the near future, nanotheranostics are the practical solution for cancer and other lethal diseases to cure or at least treat them in the early stage. Method: This paper was prepared by referring research and review article from various sites like Pubmed, Google Scholar, Research Gate, Springer Link, Frontiers journal, Bentham Science, Online library Wiley, Tandfonline, Europe PMC and IJPSR journal. The search was made by using keywords like cancer, nanotheranostics, challenges, treatment, applications and nanocarriers. Observation: Nanotheranostics is one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in nanomedicine. Most of the currently available diagnosis and therapies are invasive, time-consuming, and associated with severe toxic side effects. Nanotheranostics, on the other hand, has the potential to bridge this gap by harnessing the capabilities of nanotechnology and nanomaterials for combined therapeutics and diagnostics with markedly enhanced efficacy. The ability to engineer nanomaterials to interact with cancer cells at the molecular level can significantly improve the effectiveness and specificity of therapy to cancers that are currently difficult to treat. This paper presents an overview of the nanotheranostics approach in cancer management and a different nanomaterials used in theranostics and the possible challenges of translation of nanotheranostics in to clinics.

Keywords: Cancer, Nanotheranostics, Challenges, Treatment, Applications, Nanocarriers.