Nanomedicine, a new therapeutic strategy in breast cancer treatment

Background: As cancers, especially breast cancer, have become the mostlethal and concerning subject, new methods to promote therapies and achievebetter results are strongly essential. Nanotechnology has offered a new approach toadvocate the strategies being used and to vanquish their impediments. This articleprovides a review of the nanomaterials used most recently, mainly in breast cancer,for more effective and specific treatment.Methods: Documents were found in PubMed and Google Scholar using“nanomaterials” and “breast cancer” as the main keywords. Additionally, eachindividual nanomaterial with “liposomes”, “polymeric NPs”, “dendrimers”,“quantum dots”, “virus like nanoparticles” and “magnetic NPs” keywords weresearched and selected after assessing publishers, journals impact and theirrelativities to the subject of the review. Results: Six frequently used nanoparticles in breast cancer treatment includingliposomes, polymeric NPs, dendrimers, VLPs, quantum dots, and magnetic NPswere selected to be discussed in this review. They all showed correlative resultssuch as promoting drug maintenance, hydrophilicity, and accumulation in thetumor site by their specific cell targeting system and high cellular uptake. Each ofthese NPs has unique properties and disadvantages and therefore many in vitro andin vivo experiments have been carried out. Conclusion: Extensive research in nanotechnology in medicine, especially incancer, suggests that nanotechnology could be the dawn of a new era in cancertreatment and imaging.

Keywords:

Breast Cancer , cancer nanotechnology , nanomedicine