Abstract
While cancer remains the major cause of death worldwide, nanomaterial (NM)-based diagnosis and treatment modalities are showing remarkable potential to better tackle clinical oncology by effectively targeting therapeutic agents to tumors. NMs can selectively accumulate in solid tumors, and they can improve the bioavailability and reduce the toxicity of encapsulated cytotoxic agents. Additional noteworthy functions of NMs in cancer treatment include the delivery of contrast agents to image tumor sites, delivery of genetic materials for gene therapy, and co-delivery of multiple agents to achieve combination therapy or simultaneous diagnostic and therapeutic outcomes. Although several NM therapeutics have been successfully translated to clinical applications, the gap between the bench and the bedside remains ominously wide. Tumor heterogeneity and the disparity between pre-clinical and clinical studies have been identified as two of the major translational challenges of NM-based cancer therapies. Herein, we review a handful of recent research studies on the use of NMs in cancer therapy and imaging, with a limited discussion on the consequences of tumor heterogeneity and pre-clinical studies on translational research of NM-based delivery systems and propositions in the literature to overcome these challenges.