Smart multifunctional theranostics: simultaneous diagnosis and therapy of cancer

Clinical applications of advanced nanomedicines such as PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin and paclitaxel-albumin bioconjugates have significantly improved the cancer treatment strategies. However, these pharmaceuticals lack early detection and single cell tracking capabilities. Thus, engineering of smart multifunctional theranostics appear to be our next step for simultaneous diagnosis and therapy of cancer. Clinical translation of multifunctional theranostics appears to be dependent upon specificity of cancer biomarkers, biocompatibility of components used for formulation, and advancement of bioconjugation techniques. While many cancer biomarker candidates often fail to be used for clinical diagnosis/therapy because of their nonspecific functional expression in normal tissues, biocompatibility of materials used for bioconjugation also needs to be approved. All these issues need to be fully addressed prior to the translation of smart multifunctional cancer theranostics.