NANOTECHNOLOGY FOR CANCER APPLICATIONS: A REVIEW

Mangrulkar Shubhada*, Upadhye Heena, Chaple Dinesh

ABSTRACT

Cancer is the leading cause of death in economically developed countries and the second leading cause of death in developing countries. The diagnosis and treatment of cancer represents a major area of unmet need across Europe and all other areas of the world. However, a strong connection between early detection and positive patient outcome: early detection is the best hope. The ability to assess health status, disease onset and progression, and monitor treatment outcome through a non-invasive method is the main aim to be achieved in health care promotion and delivery and research. There are three prerequisites to reach this goal: specific biomarkers that indicates a healthy or diseased state; a non-invasive approach to detect and monitor the biomarkers; and the technologies to discriminate the biomarkers. The early disease diagnosis is crucial for patient survival and successful prognosis of the emphasis of this chapter is on the recent advances on the biosensors for cancer detection and monitoring. An overview of biomarkers and biosensing systems currently used to detect the onset and monitor the progression of the selected diseases. The field of pharmaceutical and medical nanotechnology has grown rapidly in recent decades and offers much promise for Prevention, detection, and therapeutic advances. This review is intended to serve as a quick summary of the major areas in the cancer prevention, detection and therapeutic advances of nanotechnology

Keywords: Cancer, Biosensor, Biomarker, Nanotechnology.