Abstracto

Nanotheranostics: future of nanomedicine

Lifeng Yan

Theranostics is a combination of diagnostics and therapeutics, and it provides a new process of imaging-guided therapy for patients, and also it provides possible chance in cancer detection at the very stage with intelligent signal corresponding to the molecular change of disease. At the beginning of theranostics, imaging group was simply conjugated to the delivery carriers loaded with drugs and the widely employed imaging methods include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed to mography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET) and optical imaging. Among them optical imaging is attractive as it can provide images in real time with high spatial resolution and the use of non-ionizing irradiation.