Recent Advances in Nanotechnology-Based Targeted Therapeutics for Breast Cancer Management

Abstract

Despite the great efforts that have been achieved in breast cancer treatment, it remains a significant cause of death in women and is a serious health problem. Treatment with chemotherapy drugs faces various challenges, such as toxicity and chemoresistance to chemotherapeutic drugs, which hinder their therapeutic success and clinical experiments. This review focuses on targeting nanocarrier approaches to target chemotherapy drugs to receptor targets that are overexpressed on the surface of breast cancer cells. In particular, the most commonly targeted nanocarriers for the chemotherapeutic agents examined by the different researcher groups, such as liposomes, dendrimers, polymeric micelles, lipid particulates, polymeric nanoparticles, and carbon nanotubes, have been reviewed. Moreover, we summarized the molecular receptors or targets that are the most commonly overexpressed in breast cancer cells and the natural and synthetic ligands studied for use as targeting moieties to functionalize chemotherapeutically loaded nanocarriers for potential specific breast cancer targeting.