Background:
Breast cancer, a heterogeneous disease typically prevalent among women and is the second-largest
cause of death worldwide. Early diagnosis is the key to minimize the cancer-induced complication, however, the
conventional diagnostic strategies have been sluggish, complex and to some extent nonspecific. Therapeutic tools are
not so convenient and side effects of current therapies offer the development of novel theranostic tool to combat this
deadly disease.
Objective:
This article aims to summarize the advances in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer
with gold nanoparticle (GNP or AuNP).
Methods:
A systematic search was conducted in the three popular electronic
online databases namely PubMed, Google Scholar and Web of Science regarding GNP as breast cancer theranostics.
Results:
Published literature demonstrated that GNPs tuned with photosensitive moieties, nanomaterials, drugs,
peptides, nucleotide, peptides, antibodies, aptamer and other biomolecules improve the conventional diagnostic and
therapeutic strategies of breast cancer management with minimum cytotoxic effect. GNP derived diagnosis system
assures reproducibility, reliability and accuracy cost-effectively. Additionally, surface-modified GNP displayed
theranostic potential even in the metastatic stage of breast cancer.
Conclusion:
Divergent strategies have shown the
theranostic potential of surface tuned GNPs against breast cancer even in the metastatic stage with minimum cytotoxic
effect both in vitro and in vivo.