Advanced targeted therapy in cancer: nanostructured carriers as innovative tools for cancer diagnosis and therapy

Introduction: Cancer is the second leading reason of death worldwide. This disease is caused by damage or mutations induced by environmental or hereditary factors in the genetic material of cells. Normal cells damage by traditional chemotherapeutic drugs as well as the growth of multidrug resistance and cellular toxicity, reinforce the need to find new targeted effective treatments based on the changes in tumor cell molecular biology.Description: Here, we reviewed the most important nanomaterials currently used in clinical applications and introduced new cancer diagnosis and therapy. In continue, we explored active and passive nanocarriers targeting. Nowadays, nanomedicine is one of the most innovative and advanced areas of biomedical research in targeted therapies. Nanodrugs block biological transduction pathways and specific cancer proteins to cause cancer cell death via apoptosis and immune system activation or directly deliver chemotherapeutic agents to cancer cells which mitigating unwanted side effects.Discussion and conclusion: At this time, several materials and formulating procedures are used for nanodrug manufacturing such as inorganic and organic nanoparticles. Many nanodrugs have already been approved for cancer diagnosis and therapy by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Some of nanodrugs are currently undergoing clinical trial evaluation and are likely to enter the market in the near future.