Nanotechnology Applications in Breast Cancer

1. Introduction

The term “nanotechnology” is a concept that has only emerged in the last decade with the prefix “nano” cited from the Greek word “nanos”, indicating that something is dwarf sized. Therefore, the term “nanotechnology” refers to a technology that uses very small particles invisible to the naked eye. Before the 21st century, nanotechnology had not yet been globally defined, but the applications of nanotechnology were already used (Sharma, Bhatia et al. 2019). Breast cancer has been recognized as one of the most fatal diseases that greatly threaten the quality of life of women around the world. Nowadays, cancer treatments have been performed based on clinical and pathologic staging that is determined using morphologic diagnostic tools, such as radiological and histopathological examinations. The most common cancer treatments are used such as chemotherapy, radiation and surgery (Misra, Acharya et al. 2010). Conventional chemotherapeutic drugs are distributed non-specifically in the body and that leads to significant complications that represent a serious obstacle to effective anticancer therapy. In addition, multidrug resistance reduces the efficacy of cancer treatment. To overcome the lack of specificity of conventional chemotherapeutic drugs, several ligand-targeted therapies have been used, including immunotoxins, radio immunotherapeutics, and drug immunoconjugates, are being developed. Although these methods have shown promising efficacy compared with conventional chemotherapy drugs, limitations remain. In this regard, it has been attempted to utilize nanomaterials to develop platforms for the treatment of breast cancer (Wang, Wang et al. 2009). The beginning of the 21st century marked an increased interest in the emerging fields of nanotechnology. It has the potential to revolutionize cancer diagnosis and therapy. Its advantages have been found in multifunctional nanoparticle probes for molecular and cellular imaging, nanoparticle drugs for targeted therapy, and integrated nanodevices for early cancer detection and screening. These developments have opened potential opportunities in which cancer detection, diagnosis and therapy are tailored to each individual’s molecular profile, and also for predictive oncology (Rocha, Chaves et al. 2017).