Nanotherapeutics for Antimetastatic Treatment

Emerging nanotherapeutics has provided versatile platform for metastatic cancer treatment. Given that the microenvironment of both primary tumors and metastatic organs significantly affects metastasis, remodeling the microenvironment with nanotherapeutics represents a promising strategy to nip tumor metastasis in the bud. A wide range of nanotherapeutics have been developed to precisely trace and kill CTCs, efficiently preventing the transfer of CTCs from the primary sites towards the remote organs. Combination nanotherapeutics provides more choices for precise diagnosis and treatment of distant metastasis, including imaging-guided theragnostics and emerging therapeutic combos for multimodal combination therapy. Tumor metastases, that is, the development of secondary tumors in organs distant from the primary tumor, and their treatment remain a serious problem in cancer therapy. The unique challenges for tracking and treating tumor metastases lie in the small size, high heterogeneity, and wide dispersion to distant organs of metastases. Recently, nanomedicines, with the capacity to precisely deliver therapeutic agents to both primary and secondary tumors, have demonstrated many potential benefits for metastatic cancer theranostics. Given the remarkable progression in emerging nanotherapeutics for antimetastatic treatment, it is timely to summarize the latest advances in this field. This review highlights the rationale, advantages, and challenges for integrating biomedical nanotechnology with cancer biology to develop antimetastatic nanotherapeutics. Tumor metastases, that is, the development of secondary tumors in organs distant from the primary tumor, and their treatment remain a serious problem in cancer therapy. The unique challenges for tracking and treating tumor metastases lie in the small size, high heterogeneity, and wide dispersion to distant organs of metastases. Recently, nanomedicines, with the capacity to precisely deliver therapeutic agents to both primary and secondary tumors, have demonstrated many potential benefits for metastatic cancer theranostics. Given the remarkable progression in emerging nanotherapeutics for antimetastatic treatment, it is timely to summarize the latest advances in this field. This review highlights the rationale, advantages, and challenges for integrating biomedical nanotechnology with cancer biology to develop antimetastatic nanotherapeutics.