Nanosized drug delivery systems (NDDS) have shown enormous potential in cancer therapy, as they can increase the bioavailability of poor water-soluble drugs, improve the drug distribution in tumor tissues, promote intracellular uptake as well as drug release inside tumor cells. The rational design of NDDS by utilizing the physiological properties of tumor may suppress the non-specific interactions between NDDS and normal tissue, and increase their tumor specificity and therapeutic performance. In this review, we briefly summarize the recent progress of passively-, actively-and biomimetically-targeting NDDS for cancer therapy.

nanotechnology  /  cancer therapy  /  targeted drug delivery systems  /  stimuli-activatable  /  biological barriers