Electrospun nanofiber-based cancer sensors: A review

Cancer is a malignancy engendering enormous global mortality, steering extensive research for early diagnosis and efficacious prognosis leading to emergence of cancer sensing technologies for multitudinous biomarkers. In this context, nanofibers, imparting high surface area, facile production, morphology control, and synergistic properties attainable, are poised to be inevitable in futuristic sensing devices for predictive diagnostics when integrated with artificial intelligence and machine learning. To this end, fundamentals governing the sensor response and their analytical performance have been discussed. The headways in organic and inorganic nanofibers for biomarker gas sensing, fluid sample sensing and imaging have been supplemented with discussions on materials for nanofiber formation, along with sensitizing materials, and formation of sensing elements by processes like surface deposition on nanofibers, immobilising, calcination, etc. and their effect on final sensing device properties. The review culminates by summarising the conceptual understanding of the hitherto progress leading to achievement of excellent analytical performance giving detection limits to the order of 1.6 pM concentration and response time of as low as 0.5 s. Current bottlenecks in this state of the art have been delineated and pathways for future research are discussed.