Recent Advances of Multifunctional Nanomedicine

The revolution of nanomedicine has emerged as an array of biological products in the pharmaceutical field. Their peculiarity of nanosize has been a benefit for the detection and prevention of diseases by application of engineered nanodevices and nanostructures. This presents range of opportunities, that are suitable for most drugs, prevents side effects, and enhances patient compliance. Nanomedicine has fascinated medical research in developing different multifunctional nanostructures like dendrimers, nanoparticles, micelles, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, etc. However, there are still certain impedes to bringing out the best amongst these nanomedicines. This chapter will spotlight the recent advances of multifunctional nanomedicine, solely to combat cancer disease conditions, that can offer improvement in the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles of the conventional approaches and optimize the efficacy of the existing anticancer drugs. In recent years, combination therapy has also shown good improvement in cancer therapy as compared to monotherapy. The theranostic application can offer a good alternative to cancer treatment. So, when the insights are combined with new nanotechnology-based therapy, targeted drug delivery can be obtained to avoid the side effects, but the concern of their toxicity should also be noted. Hence, nanomedicine represents one of the advanced fields that combine nanotechnology and medicine for improved efficiency and safety to human health, through the study of elucidation of cellular and molecular mechanisms, to design performant nano-delivery as an efficient tool for the treatment of cancer. Thus, the exploration of the properties needs to be understood to execute the unmet needs and attain project cost benefits.

Keywords: Cancer, Carbon Nanotubes, Dendrimers, Micelles, Multifunctional, Nanomedicine, Nanoparticles, Nanosize, Nanostructures, Pharmacodynamic, Pharmacokinetic, Quantum dots, Theranostic, Toxicity.