Nanomaterial-Based Drug Delivery Carriers for Cancer Therapy

Cancer is among the most deadly diseases known, with 13 million new cancer cases and about 8 million casualties worldwide each year. This chapter introduces the current status and causes of cancer, and the characteristics of cancer tissues including abnormal metabolism, abnormal vasculature, resistance to anti-proliferative growth factors (GFs), unlimited replicative potential, immune system activation and inflammation, and interstitial pressure.

Chemotherapy is the most widely used therapeutic strategy in the cancer treatment. The high incidence of cancer has led to a lot of immunotherapeutic and chemotherapeutic drugs to be developed and approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This chapter presents different kinds of antineoplastic agents that have been approved or under development.

Nanomaterial-based drug delivery carriers have numerous advantages including increased solubility, prolonged circulation time, and improved biodistribution, by the utilization of the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect or active targeting to alter the uptake mechanism. This chapter presents different types of nanomaterial-based drug delivery carriers for the cancer treatment, including organic, inorganic, and organic–inorganic hybrid nanomaterials. It is believed that precisely designed nanomaterials will be the next-generation therapeutic agents for cancer theranostics.