| خلاصه مقاله | Introduction: Brain cancer is a type of cancer with difficult treatment and low survival rate. Delivery of the therapeutic drugs to the brain is difficult due to existence of blood-brain barrier (BBB) which is a semi-permeable membrane to protect central nervous system. Recently, nanotechnology developments have provided the possibility of using nanostructures for both diagnosis and therapeutic purposes in one nanoplatform, named as nanotheranostic. The nanotheranostics can overcome the BBB because of their small size, and destroy the tumor cells. The aim of the current study was to review the nanotheranostics in brain cancer.
Materials and methods: The related articles to the nanotheranostics in brain cancer were searched from Science Direct, PubMed and Google Scholar using keywords of nanotheranostics, brain cancer, diagnosis and therapy. In total, 20 articles were found and nine of them were reviewed.
Results: The imaging modalities used for brain cancer nanotheranostics consist of optical imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which causes the early detection of the tumor. For optical imaging, different types of the nanostructures including upconversion nanoparticles, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes and Au nanoparticles have been investigated. Among these nanostructures, quantum dots and upconversion nanoparticles showed high safety for the clinical applications. For MRI, iron oxide nanoparticles have been widely used as magnetic portion of the nanotheranostics. Surface modification of the nanostructures with tumor targeting moieties and chemotherapy drugs can be lead to the nanotheranostic agents which can deliver through the BBB.
Conclusion: Nanotheranostics can provide early detection of brain cancer, and deliver therapeutic agents to the tumor site to destroy cancer cells. |