Multifunctional tumor-targeted nanoparticles for lung cancer

Lung cancer is a major health problem in the United States. Despite the development of molecular-targeting agents such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors and advances made in conventional chemoradiotherapy and surgical therapy, the overall five-year survival rate of lung cancer patients remains poor and is less than 15%. Recently, in an attempt to improve diagnosis and therapy, novel technologies such as nanotechnology have emerged for application in medicine. One major goal of nanomedicine is to develop multifunctional nanoparticles that can be applied for diagnosis and imaging of cancer as well as therapy for cancer. As a result, a number of nanoparticle agents of various compositions, sizes, and shapes are being developed. A majority of the nanoparticles, however, are in preclinical studies, and only a few of them have advanced to early clinical testing. Efforts in several laboratories, including our own laboratory, are in developing tumor-targeted multifunctional metal-iron-oxide-based nanoparticles for imaging and therapy of lung cancer. In this article, we will discuss various nanomaterial-based nanoparticles, including our own tumor-targeted multifunctional nanoparticles that are being developed for lung cancer. Readers are encouraged to review additional literature to obtain more information on nanomaterials and their application in nanomedicine and cancer therapy.