Bringing Again Noble Metal Nanoparticles to the Forefront of Cancer Therapy

Nanomaterials have attracted increasing interest for their potentiality to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases, especially neoplasms. Interestingly, there is a huge imbalance between the number of proposed nanoplatforms and the few ones approved for clinical applications. This disequilibrium affects in particular noble metal nanoparticles (NPs), that present no-approved platform and very few candidates in clinical trials because of the issue of persistence. In this perspective, we discuss if nanomedicine is generally keeping its promises with a focus on the approach that could fill the gap between NPs and oncology in the next future: the ultrasmall-in-nano.