Theranostics Inorganic Nano-particles for Brain Tumor Diagnosis and Treatment

Brain tumors pose a major threat to human health due to difficult treatment, rapid progression, and poor prognosis, resulting in a terrible fatality rate that has remained high over the years. As arteries have limited drug permeability into brain tumor tissue, the success rate of chemotherapy remains low. Considering the anatomic concerns of brain tumors and the interaction between the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and nano-particles (NPs), nanotechnology is deemed an attractive approach as it has the potential to increase brain drug distribution. Theranostic strategies have also been proposed in recent years and they are seen promising. NPs are considered ideal due to their size, ease of surface modification and, adaptability to integrating several functional components in one system. In lieu of this, the design of nano-particles with therapeutic and diagnostic uses has increased tremendously, particularly in cancer treatment. This two-pronged technique aids in understanding tumor tissue location, treatment progress, nanoparticle’s bio-distribution and, its efficacy as it is particularly valuable for personalized medicine-based treatments. In this chapter, we will focus on the properties of the blood-brain barrier and the blood-brain tumor barrier (BBTB), two important hurdles in brain-tumor targeted delivery, and the targeting strategies that aim at different stages of brain tumor growth and development as well as their recent advances in brain tumor-targeted novel nano-drug delivery systems.

Keywords: Blood-brain barrier, Brain targeting, Brain tumor, Inorganic nano-particles