Recent progress of carbon dots in the theranostics of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases

Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (CCVDs) remain the leading cause of human death worldwide, therefore their early, highly sensitive diagnosis and effective treatment are key to reducing related mortality. With the development of biotechnology, various nanomaterials have been applied to the management of CCVDs. Among them, carbon dots (CDs) are considered promising candidates for bioimaging and CCVD therapy due to their unique properties, including excellent biocompatibility, good optical stability, abundant surface functional groups, high surface area, oxidation resistance, enzyme-like activity, and potential photoacoustic/fluorescence/magnetic resonance imaging capabilities. Therefore, this review aims to summarize the recent research progress in CDs for the development of CCVD theranostic platforms. This review briefly described the classification, synthesis pathways, and functional modification methods of CDs, then outlined the application performance of CDs in the diagnosis and treatment of CCVDs. Specifically, this review focused on the potential applications of CDs as carriers and functional components in the management of various CCVDs. In addition, several urgent issues for the potential practical application of CDs in this field were proposed, and the future prospects for their development were also discussed.