A Review on Theranostics: An Approach to Targeted Diagnosis and Therapy

Abstract

Emerging as a targeted, safe, and efficient pharmacotherapy is the approach of theranostics, which focuses on patient centered care. It is a combination of diagnosis and therapeutics. Theranostics is a new field of medicine which combines specific targeted therapy based on specific targeted diagnostic tests. With a key focus on patient centered care, theranostics provides a transition from conventional medicine to a contemporary personalized and precision medicine approach. The theranostics paradigm involves using nanoscience to unite diagnostic and therapeutic applications to form a single agent, allowing for diagnosis, drug delivery and treatment response monitoring. The theranostics medicine can achieve systemic circulation, evade host defenses and deliver the drug and diagnostic agents at the targeted site to diagnose and treat the disease at cellular and molecular level.
 

Melanin and Melanin-Functionalized Nanoparticles as Promising Tools in Cancer Research—A Review

“…Theranostics, which is in essence a portmanteau of therapy and diagnostic, has emerged as a targeted, safe, and efficient approach to the development of more specific and individualized therapies in the treatment of various diseases [ 172 ]. With the emergence of nanotechnology and nanomaterials, the concept of nanotheranostics was introduced [ 173 ] and became a fast-growing pharmaceutical field, enabling the simultaneous drug delivery and monitoring of drug distribution, drug release, and therapeutic efficiency through a single nanoscale platform.…”

“…With the emergence of nanotechnology and nanomaterials, the concept of nanotheranostics was introduced [ 173 ] and became a fast-growing pharmaceutical field, enabling the simultaneous drug delivery and monitoring of drug distribution, drug release, and therapeutic efficiency through a single nanoscale platform. Numerous nanoparticle-based theranostic agents have been exploited so far, including liposomes, dendrimers, micelles, carbon nanotubes, magnetic nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, silica, and polymeric nanoparticles [ 172 , 174 ]. Melanin and melanin-like nanomaterials were reported as effective theranostic agents.…”

Gold, Silver, and Palladium Nanoparticles: A Chemical Tool for Biomedical Applications

“…The bioinspired AuNPs have become a potential possibility to discover for use in biosensors, targeted drug delivery, photothermal therapies, immunoassays, photoimaging, and photodynamic therapy as shown in Figure 3. Interestingly, in human cancerous and cellular biology, several kinds of AuNPs such as Au nanorods, Au nanocages, Au-stars, nano Au-cubes, and Au nanospheres, have been considered as effective tools (Das et al, 2019;Filli et al, 2019;Pillai, 2019;Shrivastava et al, 2019). Despite all these assistances, the biocompatibility of AuNPs is a vital factor to be reconsidered for the interpretation of scientific applications.…”

Theranostic Advances in Breast Cancer in Nuclear Medicine

“…This remarkable concept is named ‘theranostic’ ( Figure 1 ) [ 9 ]. This unique application (therapy + diagnostics) means combination of radiolabelled ligands with gamma-(γ) or positron-(β + ) emitting radionuclides for diagnostic purposes with the same ligand incorporating therapeutic radionuclides such as alpha-(α) or beta-(β − ) emitters to perform a personalised targeted treatment based on the preliminary diagnostic procedure [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Several successful theranostic approaches based on peptidomimetics, antibodies and small molecules have presented significant responses in clinical trials.…”