Читать книгу Sustainable Nanotechnology - Группа авторов - Страница 16

Cancer is the result of uncontrolled cell division and has the tendency to spread to other regions of the body. Healthy cells can be converted to tumor cells with the right combination, or in this case, the wrong combination of genes and environmental factors. According to the statistics published by the Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN), in 2018, there were 18.1 million new cancer cases and 9.6 million cancer deaths, the leading cause being lung, bowel, prostate, and female breast cancer [7].

Over the past several decades, nanotechnology has made magnificent contributions to oncology, not just in terms of diagnosis but also regarding drug delivery for treatment. Specifically, in cancer therapy, the use of nanomaterials has allowed the development of targeted drug delivery, enhanced the properties of therapeutic molecules, and developed a sustainable or stimulus‐triggered drug delivery [8]. There are a lot of factors involved in the effective management of cancer treatment, one of which is early detection. In order to detect uncontrolled growth, pathologists use cancer biomarkers. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), biomarkers are “any measurable diagnostic indicator that is used to assess the risk or presence of disease” [9]. Every cell type in the body has unique molecular features and characteristics.

Cancer cells, or other cells in response to the presence of abnormal growth in the body, release biomolecules that are different from the biomolecules released from healthy cells. These biomolecules are defined as biomarkers and can be used to define the molecular definition of cancer [10]. Examples of biomarkers include genes; gene products; specific cells; enzymes; hormones present in blood, urine, tissues, and other bodily fluids; proteins or protein fragments; and DNA‐ or RNA‐based fragments [11, 12].

There are several existing methods of detection available including:

1 the Papanicolaou test to detect cervical cancer and mammography for breast cancer detection for women,

2 prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) test for a blood sample of men to detect prostate cancer,

3 occult blood test for colon cancer detection, and

4 endoscopy, X‐rays, ultrasound imaging, CT scans, and MRI are used for various detection purposes.

However, there are many limitations to the current methods. Furthermost, these methods are not always successful at detecting cancer at early stages. In addition, they are neither affordable nor available to many people who require them. The priority should be to discover new methods of detections that are accessible when needed. For detection, nanomaterials’ physical, optical, and electrical properties are quite useful. Over the years, the development of nanomaterials such as quantum dots, gold nanoparticles (GNPs), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), magnetic nanoparticles, gold nanowires, and many others works to lessen the limits of the standard methods of detection and increase the precision of detection [12].