Pulmonary delivery of nano-particles for lung cancer diagnosis and therapy: Recent advances and future prospects

Although our understanding of lung cancer has significantly improved in the past decade, it is still a disease with a high incidence and mortality rate. The key reason is that the efficacy of the therapeutic drugs is limited, mainly due to insufficient doses of drugs delivered to the lungs. To achieve precise lung cancer diagnosis and treatment, nano-particles (NPs) pulmonary delivery techniques have attracted much attention and facilitate the exploration of the potential of those in inhalable NPs targeting tumor lesions. Since the therapeutic research focusing on pulmonary delivery NPs has rapidly developed and evolved substantially, this review will mainly discuss the current developments of pulmonary delivery NPs for precision lung cancer diagnosis and therapy. This article is categorized under: Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Respiratory Disease Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Emerging Technologies Diagnostic Tools > In Vivo Nanodiagnostics and Imaging.