Cancer continues to pose a significant global health concern, requiring creative strategies to improve treatment results and diagnostic methods. Smart nanostructures represent a paradigm shift in cancer management, offering precision, efficiency, and multifunctionality. This review delves into the transformative role of smart nanostructures in oncology, emphasizing their potential to address critical limitations of conventional therapies, like systemic toxicity, drug toxicity, suboptimal targeting, and drug resistance. The diversity of smart nanostructures, including polymeric nanoparticles, liposomes, dendrimers, metal-based nanostructures, and carbon-based materials, is explored, highlighting their unique properties and applications. Stimuliresponsive nanostructures capable of modulating drug release under specific pH, temperature, redox, or enzymatic conditions are discussed as pivotal innovations for precise cancer therapy. Strategies for enhanced targeting, encompassing passive mechanisms such as the Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR) effect and active targeting through ligand-receptor interactions, highlight the significance of tumor specificity. In addition to medication delivery, the utilization of nanostructures in cancer diagnosis, such as imaging modalities, biomarker detection, and real-time observation, is examined. The advent of multifunctional theranostic platforms, integrating diagnostics and therapy, exemplifies the convergence of nanotechnology and oncology. Additionally, the review addresses the role of personalized medicine, leveraging patient-specific genomic and proteomic data to tailor nanostructure design. Emerging trends in fabrication techniques and the translation of nanostructures from laboratory research to clinical practice are critically assessed, offering insights into future opportunities and challenges. This comprehensive review seeks to offer a comprehensive knowledge of smart nanostructures that could transform cancer management.
Singh et al. (Wed,) studied this question.