Abstract

Cancer is considered as a prevalent cause of human deaths and undoubtedly, is the most complex disease with multiple cellular physiological systems involved. During the last decade, the application of nanotechnological products for cancer treatment has received considerable attention. These sophisticated tools and materials treat cancer though the early diagnosis, the prediction, the prevention and the personalized therapy. This technology enabled the development of nanoscale particles that can be conjugated with one or multiple functional molecules simultaneously. Nanoparticles have the capability to be delivered directly through blood vessels to the tumor site and interact with targeted tumor-specific proteins located inside or on the surface of cancer cells, since their size is a hundred to thousand times smaller than cancer cells. In this review, comprehensive outline of all the latest scientific and technological applications such as quantum dots and gold nanoparticles alongside with their applications in cancer diagnosis and treatment have been presented.

Keywords: Cancer diagnosis and treatment, drug delivery, gold nanoparticles, nanomedicine, quantum dots.