CANCER NANOTHERANOSTICS: A NEW PARADIGM OF SIMULTANEOUS DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY

Despite improvements in our understanding of cancer and the emerging concept of personalized medicine for the treatment of this disease, it is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Although, in recent years, significant advances have been achieved in cancer therapy, many tumors are still challenging to treat and novel strategies are required to effectively combat this deadly disease. Nanotheranostics is a burgeoning field which makes use of nanotechnology for diagnosis and therapy of cancer. The recent advancement in the area of nanotechnology has enabled a new generation of different types of nanomaterials composed of either inorganic or polymer based nanoparticles to be useful for nanotheranostics applications such as to diagnose and treat diseases and monitoring the therapeutic response in vivo at molecular level; to enhance the control, evaluation and optimization of drug delivery and release; to target the drug by conjugating theranostic nanoplatformes with biological ligands. This review, therefore, summarizes the various nanocarriers developed so far for the simultaneous imaging and therapy, strategies for their targeted delivery, their potential applications and the challenges in their development and application for cancer therapy.  Key words: Cancer; Cancer therapy; Nanoparticles; Nanotheranostics.