Active-targeted Nanotherapy as Smart Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Drug delivery systems (DDS) can be designed to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs. Targeted drug delivery, sometimes called smart drug delivery, is a method of delivering medication to a patient in a manner that increases the concentration of the medication in infective organs or cells, relative to others. Can‐ cer is one of the major causes of mortality worldwide and innovative methods for can‐ cer therapy are urgently required. Nanoparticles (NPs), by using active targeting strategy, can enhance the intracellular concentration of drugs in cancerous cells while avoiding toxicity in normal cells. Nanoparticles with bioscience are being actively de‐ veloped for in vivo tumor imaging, bimolecular profiling of cancer biomarkers, and targeted drug delivery. The advantages of the targeted release system are the reduction in the frequency of dosages taken by the patient, having a uniform effect of the drug, reduction of drug side effects, and reduced fluctuation in circulating drug levels. In this chapter, we focus on targeted drug delivery systems integrated from nanobiotech‐ nology.