Chiamaka Akpati, Huda Asif, and Sarah Ashour
Abstract:
Cancer treatments like chemotherapy, though effective, often end up damaging healthy cells along with cancer cells, with fatigue, hair loss, and cognitive impairment being just a few of many negative side effects caused by chemotherapy. Targeted drug delivery aims to minimize, if not eliminate, the undesirable aspects of chemotherapy by directly delivering treatment to cancer cells. Smart nanoparticles are engineered to carry drugs directly to affected sites by responding to specific stimuli, allowing them to provide targeted treatment through either a change in chemical structure, solubility, or a release mechanism linked to a particular type of stimulus. These nanoparticles minimize damage to healthy tissue and increase the therapeutic outcome of treatments. There are many current cases of smart
nanoparticles being used in the field of oncology for cancers such as breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and brain cancer. Additionally, nanoparticles have shown promising results when used in diagnostics. While smart nanoparticles are promising for cancer drug delivery, drawbacks such as potential toxicity, difficulty achieving targeted delivery, and challenges in scaling up production leave room for more research focused on improving the efficiency of nanoparticles. Smart nanoparticles are an innovative form of drug delivery that, with time, can go on to expand their reach beyond oncology and positively impact the medical field as a whole.