Current Trends of Nanotechnology for Cancer Therapy

Abstract

Nanoparticulate technology is of particular use in developing a new generation of more effective cancer therapies capable of overcoming many biological, biophysical and biomedical barriers that the body stages against a standard intervention. Targeted delivery of drug molecules to tumor tissue is one of the most interesting and challenging endeavors faced in pharmaceutical field, due to the critical and pharmacokinetically specific environment that exists in tumor. Over these years, cancer targeting treatment has been greatly improved by new tools and approaches based on nanotechnology. Nanoparticles show much promise in cancer therapy by selectively gaining access to tumor due to their small size and modifiability. In this review, nonmaterial and biomarkers of cancer, general principle of drug targeting to cancer, intracellular mechanisms, nanoparticles based formulation in market, several recent applications in medicine as diagnostic and therapeutic are discussed. The review’s basic approach is: the defining features of cancer nanotechnology are embedded in their breakthrough potential for design and development of nanoparticle based drugs.