Theranostic nanoparticles for future personalized medicine

Multifunctional porous silicon nanoparticles for cancer theranostics

“…On the other hand, accurate diagnostics is a key issue for the early detection and treatment of cancer. The so-called theranostic systems, which combine diagnostic imaging with delivery of therapeutic agents, are a recent advance in the development of nanomedicines [5]. For the development and performance evaluation of these drug delivery systems it is also very important to have the necessary imaging tools to follow the fate of the developed nanocarriers in vivo [6].…”

GdDOTAGA(C18)2: an efficient amphiphilic Gd(iii) chelate for the preparation of self-assembled high relaxivity MRI nanoprobes

“…1,2 The versatility of nanosystems allows tuneable surface modification and loading with different chemicals (drugs, imaging agents, targeting vectors) with the aim of fine-optimizing the biological properties of the nanocarriers, while simultaneously enabling them to perform diagnostically and/or therapeutically important functions. 3,4 Lipid-containing nanoparticles (LNPs), 5 like micelles, liposomes, and solid lipid nanoparticles, or other similar nanosystems (such as the recently developed dendrimersomes) [6][7][8] are based on supramolecular aggregates obtained by spontaneous assembling in aqueous solution of phospholipids alone or in mixture with other amphiphilic molecules. Such objects have been frequently used as nanocarriers for drug delivery and imaging applications due to their great chemical versatility that allows the loading of hydrophobic, amphiphilic, and hydrophilic substances, and surface decoration with targeting vectors, blood lifetime modulators, and diagnostic agents.…”

Applications of nanoparticles in cancer medicine and beyond: optical and multimodalin vivoimaging, tissue targeting and drug delivery

“…All these critical aspects can be overcome by the use of nanostructured probes. Indeed, the performances of NPcontrast agents, when compared with conventional OI methods, are characterized by: i) increased contrast efficiency [44]; ii) increased circulation (blood residence) time [3]; iii) possibility of combining different functions (diagnosis and therapy) [48]; iv) improved tumor penetration [2,49]; v) multi-spectral capabilities [21] and; vi) multi-modal detection, as NPs provide a versatile carrier system to simultaneously load modality-specific contrast agents [48]. So far, a wide range of fluorescent NPs suitable for OI have been designed and tested in preclinical studies [50] and the characteristics of the most relevant NP types are summarized in Table 2.…”

“…Different types of NPs have been developed with peculiar physicochemical properties (such as chemical reactivity, energy absorption and biological mobility) that distinguish them from bulk materials by virtue of their size and surface characteristics [1]. In recent years, these materials have emerged as important tools in medicine, with various applications ranging from contrast agents in molecular imaging to carriers for drug delivery [2,3].…”