The use of liposomes for drug delivery began early in the history of pharmaceutical nanocarriers. These nanosized, lipid bilayered vesicles have become popular as drug delivery systems owing to their efficiency, biocompatibility, nonimmunogenicity, enhanced solubility of chemotherapeutic agents and their ability to encapsulate a wide array of drugs. Passive and ligand-mediated active targeting promote tumor specificity with diminished adverse off-target effects. The current field of liposomes focuses on both clinical and diagnostic applications. Recent efforts have concentrated on the development of multifunctional liposomes that target cells and cellular organelles with a single delivery system. This review discusses the recent advances in liposome research in tumor targeting.

Nanoparticles as drug delivery system have received much attention in recent years, especially for cancer treatment. In addition to improving the pharmacokinetics of the loaded poorly soluble hydrophobic drugs by solubilizing them in the hydrophobic compartments, nanoparticles allowed cancer specific drug delivery by inherent passive targeting phenomena and adopted active targeting strategies. For this reason, nanoparticles-drug formulations are capable of enhancing the safety, pharmacokinetic profiles and bioavailability of the administered drugs leading to improved therapeutic efficacy compared to conventional therapy. The focus of this review is to provide an overview of various nanoparticle formulations in both research and clinical applications with a focus on various chemotherapeutic drug delivery systems for the treatment of cancer. The use of various nanoparticles, including liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, magnetic and other inorganic nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery in cancer is detailed.

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