Recent advances in nanotechnology may offer new hope for significant improvement in the success of cancer treatment, especially in preventing tumor growth and progression. Having grown exponentially, the focus of nanotechnology has been on engineering diversified novel applications that even go beyond therapeutic activity; nanotechnology also offers the ability to detect diseases, such as cancer, much earlier than ever imaginable. Nanoparticles with enhanced surface properties are able to diffuse with greater ease inside the tumor cells delivering a high amount of drug selectively to tumor cells with significant reduced toxicity. The association of chemotherapeutic agents with nanoparticles offers improvement in the solubility and stability of antitumor agents, avoidance of drug degradation, and reductions in therapeutic dose and toxicity, increasing drug levels in tumor tissue and decreasing them in healthy tissue. In this review, we discuss the current state of research on applications of nanoparticles (NPs) for cancer therapy, diagnosis and also advance of nanoparticles. Keywords: Nanotechnology; Nanoparticles; Liposome; Micelles; Quantum dot; Gold nanoparticles, Magnetic nanoparticles; Carbon nanotubes; Dendrimers; Cancer therapy; Cancer biomarkers