Metabolomics and Enzymology Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Int J Nanomedicine. 2012;7:4391-408. doi: 10.2147/IJN.S33838. Epub 2012 Aug 9.
Cancer is a highly complex disease to understand, because it entails multiple cellular physiological systems. The most common cancer treatments are restricted to chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Moreover, the early recognition and treatment of cancer remains a technological bottleneck. There is an urgent need to develop new and innovative technologies that could help to delineate tumor margins, identify residual tumor cells and micrometastases, and determine whether a tumor has been completely removed or not. Nanotechnology has witnessed significant progress in the past few decades, and its effect is widespread nowadays in every field. Nanoparticles can be modified in numerous ways to prolong circulation, enhance drug localization, increase drug efficacy, and potentially decrease chances of multidrug resistance by the use of nanotechnology. Recently, research in the field of cancer nanotechnology has made remarkable advances. The present review summarizes the application of various nanotechnology-based approaches towards the diagnostics and therapeutics of cancer.
癌症是一种非常复杂的疾病，因为它涉及多个细胞生理系统。最常见的癌症治疗方法仅限于化疗、放疗和手术。此外，癌症的早期识别和治疗仍然是一个技术瓶颈。因此，迫切需要开发新的创新技术，以帮助描绘肿瘤边界、识别残留的肿瘤细胞和微转移，并确定肿瘤是否已被完全清除。
在过去的几十年中，纳米技术取得了重大进展，其影响现在在各个领域都非常广泛。纳米粒子可以通过多种方式进行修饰，以延长循环时间、增强药物定位、提高药物疗效，并通过使用纳米技术降低多药耐药的可能性。最近，癌症纳米技术领域的研究取得了显著进展。本综述总结了各种基于纳米技术的方法在癌症诊断和治疗中的应用。
