Progress in Polymeric Nano-Medicines for Theranostic Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Cancer is a life-threatening disease killing millions of people globally. Among various medical treatments, nano-medicines are gaining importance continuously. Many nanocarriers have been developed for treatment, but polymerically-based ones are acquiring importance due to their targeting capabilities, biodegradability, biocompatibility, capacity for drug loading and long blood circulation time. The present article describes progress in polymeric nano-medicines for theranostic cancer treatment, which includes cancer diagnosis and treatment in a single dosage form. The article covers the applications of natural and synthetic polymers in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Efforts were also made to discuss the merits and demerits of such polymers; the status of approved nano-medicines; and future perspectives.

Biocompatible Polymer Nanocomposites Integrating Magnetic Polyoxomolybdates for Enhanced MRI and On‐Site Activated Photothermal Properties

“…[ 11–13 ] Importantly, the additional advantage for the polymer nanoparticles is that the loading components can act as a crosslinker and a sensitizer to control performance of polymers in biosystem. [ 10 ]…”

“…Among the various nanoparticles that are used as nanoformulations for cancer theranostics, polymers existing in multiple forms (e.g., micelles, vesicle, hydrogels, dendrimers, and nanoparticles) are gaining specific attention due to their carrying capacity, stimuli-responsiveness, diverse chemical modification, biocompatible and biodegradable properties. [8][9][10] The diagnostic and therapeutic agents, such as paramagnetic metal ions, fluorophores, radionuclides, chemotherapy drugs, therapeutic antibodies, and phototherapy agents, could be efficiently incorporated into polymer matrixes through physical entrapment and/or chemical binding. Thus, the combined loading carriers ultimately achieves the multiple functions on theranostics.…”

“…[11][12][13] Importantly, the additional advantage for the polymer nanoparticles is that the loading components can act as a crosslinker and a sensitizer to control performance of polymers in biosystem. [10] Compared with the conventional cancer treatment manners, [3,14,15] light-triggered photothermal therapy (PTT) modality is particularly promising due to its high local action and decreased damage to the remote normal tissues and organs. [16−18] Typically, PTT method involves a photoabsorber to convert near infrared (NIR) light energy into the heat at local region and the resulted temperature increase leads to the tumor ablation because of the specific slowing down of blood flow velocity.…”

Advances in Nanocarriers for Effective Delivery of Docetaxel in the Treatment of Lung Cancer: An Overview

“…Among the common methods to prepare PNPs are solvent evaporation, solvent diffusion, nanoprecipitation and salting out. Other than nanocapsules and nanospheres, polymeric micelles, polymeric dendrimer, and polyplexes are regarded as polymer-based NPs [ 99 ]. The polymers used in the formulations of PNPs can either be from a natural source of polymer or synthetic polymer [ 99 ].…”

Recent Advances in Crosslinked Nanogel for Multimodal Imaging and Cancer Therapy

“…Traditional cancer treatment process divides diagnosis and therapy into different procedures, which is time consuming and requires high cost [ 2 , 3 ]. In contrast, cancer theranostics which combines diagnosis and therapy into one system can overcome such disadvantages, and has shown great potential in the field of cancer treatment [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Recently, phototheranostics, which based on optical imaging, have been widely studied because of their unique advantages such as high safety and sensitivity, low cost and capability of multi-channel imaging [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”