Nanomedicine in cancer diagnosis and therapeutics

Cancer has emerged as a significant global health challenge, with both its occurrence and death toll rising annually. Studies have shown that early, precise diagnosis and targeted cancer therapy can effectively reduce the mortality rate of malignant tumors. As an emerging field, nanomedicine seeks to unify cancer diagnosis and therapy within a single platform, enabling early detection, precise drug targeting, and minimized harm to healthy tissues. In recent years, nanotechnology has emerged as a powerful tool in oncological applications, revolutionizing both cancer detection and therapeutic interventions, and clinical treatment strategies have also shown a significant trend of shifting from single therapy to combination therapy. Research demonstrates that multimodal combination therapy not only combines the benefits of individual treatment modalities but also generates synergistic effects, yielding significantly superior clinical outcomes compared to monotherapies or simple treatment combinations. Consequently, the integration of nanotechnology with multimodal synergistic approaches has emerged as an innovative paradigm in oncological therapeutics. This article provides a systematic review of the unique characteristics and functional mechanisms of various nanomaterials, while examining their translational applications in oncological diagnostics and therapeutics through nanomedicine approaches.