Nanotechnology in Cancer Therapy: Overview and Applications

Abstract

ABSTRACT − Nanotechnology for cancer therapy is playing a pivotal role in dramatically improving current approaches to cancer detection, diagnosis, and therapy while reducing toxic side effects associated with previous cancer therapy. A wide -spread understanding of these new technologies will lead to develop the more refined design of optimized nanoparticles with improved selectivity, efficacy and safety in the clinical practice of oncology. This review provides an integrated overview of applications and advances of nanotechnology in cancer therapy, based on molecular diagnostics, treatment, monitoring, target drug delivery, approved nanoparticle-based chemotherapeutic agents, and current clinical trials in the development of nanomedicine and ultimately personalized medicine.Key words − Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine, Nanoparticles, Cancer therapy, Personalized therapy Nanotechnology is the interdisciplinary field which is focused on man-made materials up to 100×10 -9 Diagnosism (Grobmyer et al., 2010). Applications of nanotechnology in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of disease are collectively referred to as “nanomedicine” – an emerging field that has the potential to revolutionize individual and population-based health in the 21st century (Pautler et al., 2010). In recent years, considerable progress and attention have been made in the design and appli-cation of cancer nanotechnology, that is, nanooncology, which is currently the most important chapter of nanomedicine for improving cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment (Cuenca et al., 2006; Jain, 2010; Misra et al., 2010).Nanobiotechnology plays an important role in the discovery of biomarkers of cancer as well as the development of several drugs for cancer and aids to cancer surgery (Jain, 2007; Jain, 2010). It also provides a unique approach and comprehensive technology against cancer through early diagnosis, prediction, prevention, personalized therapy and medicine for cancer (Misra et al., 2010). The impact of nanobiotechnology on oncology is shown schematically in Figure 1 (Jain, 2005; Jain, 2007; Jain, 2010). This article will focus our attention on cur-rent advances and applications of nanotechnology in cancer therapy for helping with further advancement of developing better cancer drug delivery system that can be applied clin-ically.