Liposomal Contrast Agents in Brain Tumor Imaging

Advances in nanoprobes for molecular MRI of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia and a leading cause of mortality in the elderly population. Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease has traditionally relied on evaluation of clinical symptoms for cognitive impairment with a definitive diagnosis requiring post-mortem demonstration of neuropathology. However, advances in disease pathogenesis have revealed that patients exhibit Alzheimer's disease pathology several decades before the manifestation of clinical symptoms. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays an important role in the management of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The clinical availability of molecular MRI (mMRI) contrast agents can revolutionize the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. In this article, we review advances in nanoparticle contrast agents, also referred to as nanoprobes, for mMRI of Alzheimer's disease. This article is categorized under: Diagnostic Tools > In Vivo Nanodiagnostics and Imaging Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Neurological Disease.

Nanotheranostics for personalized medicine

The application of nanotechnology in the biomedical field, known as nanomedicine, has gained much interest in the recent past, as versatile strategy for selective drug delivery and diagnostic purposes. The already encouraging results obtained with monofunctional nanomedicines have directed the efforts of the scientists towards the creation of "nanotheranostics" (i.e. theranostic nanomedicines) which integrate imaging and therapeutic functions in a single platform. Nanotheranostics hold great promises because they combine the simultaneous non-invasive diagnosis and treatment of diseases with the exciting possibility to monitor in real time drug release and distribution, thus predicting and validating the effectiveness of the therapy. Due to these features nanotheranostics are extremely attractive for optimizing treatment outcomes in cancer and other severe diseases. The following step is the attempt to use nanotheranostics for performing a real personalized medicine which will tailor optimized treatment to each patient, taking into account the individual variability. Clinical application of nanotheranostics would enable earlier detection and treatment of diseases and earlier assessment of the response, thus allowing screening for patients which would potentially respond to therapy and have higher possibilities of a favorable outcome. This concept makes nanotheranostics extremely appealing to elaborate personalized therapeutic protocols for achieving the maximal benefit along with a high safety profile. Among the several systems developed up to now, this review focuses on the nanotheranostics which, due to the promising results, show the highest potential of translation to clinical applications and may transform into concrete practice the concept of personalized nanomedicine.