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  • Review Article
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Rethinking cancer nanotheranostics

Nature Reviews Materials volume 2, Article number: 17024 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

Advances in nanoparticle synthesis and engineering have produced nanoscale agents affording both therapeutic and diagnostic functions that are often referred to by the portmanteau ‘nanotheranostics’. The field is associated with many applications in the clinic, especially in cancer management. These include patient stratification, drug-release monitoring, imaging-guided focal therapy and post-treatment response monitoring. Recent advances in nanotheranostics have expanded this notion and enabled the characterization of individual tumours, the prediction of nanoparticle–tumour interactions, and the creation of tailor-designed nanomedicines for individualized treatment. Some of these applications require breaking the dogma that a nanotheranostic must combine both therapeutic and diagnostic agents within a single, physical entity; instead, it can be a general approach in which diagnosis and therapy are interwoven to solve clinical issues and improve treatment outcomes. In this Review, we describe the evolution and state of the art of cancer nanotheranostics, with an emphasis on clinical impact and translation.

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Figure 1: Historical timeline of key advances in cancer nanotheranostics.
Figure 2: Nanotheranostics for cancer diagnosis.
Figure 3: Applications of nanotheranostics in cancer therapy.
Figure 4: Tumour characteristics that affect the intratumoural fates of nanotheranostics.
Figure 5: Nanotheranostics for drug-release monitoring.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H. S. Eden for critically reading the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, US National Institutes of Health (NIH); and by the Department of Defense (CDMRP grant CA140666), National Science Foundation (CAREER grant NSF1552617), University of Georgia–Georgia Regents University (seed grant) and NIH (R01 grants R01EB022596 and R01NS093314).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Molecular Imaging and Translational Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, China

    Hongmin Chen

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Athens, 30602, Georgia, USA

    Hongmin Chen, Weizhong Zhang & Jin Xie

  3. Bio-imaging Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, 30602, Georgia, USA

    Hongmin Chen & Jin Xie

  4. Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Nanomedicine, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, 20892, Maryland, USA

    Guizhi Zhu & Xiaoyuan Chen

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Correspondence to Jin Xie or Xiaoyuan Chen.

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Chen, H., Zhang, W., Zhu, G. et al. Rethinking cancer nanotheranostics. Nat Rev Mater 2, 17024 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/natrevmats.2017.24

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