Abstract
Breast cancer is the most common disease in women worldwide, yet current
pharmacological therapy is far from ideal due to the high mortality rate among breast
cancer patients. Emerging nanomedicine is a viable therapy option for breast cancer.
Various potential organic and inorganic nanoparticles are promising drug nanocarriers
developed for targeted delivery in breast cancer therapy over the years, with evidence
established. Nanocarriers have passive and ligand-based targeting mechanisms that
allow them to accumulate preferentially in breast tumours. Besides many conventional
nanocarriers, polymer-based nanocarriers include the application of dendrimers,
polymersomes, polymeric nanoparticles, polymer micelles, polyplexes, polymer–lipid
hybrid systems, and polymer-drug/Polymer-protein conjugates to improve breast
cancer therapeutic efficacy, has expanded in the recent past. However, the concept of
nanocarriers with drug conjugates is constrained to the lab size. They must be scaled up
to generate active-targeted nanomedicine for clinical use against breast cancer. As a
result, the current chapter focuses on research that has recently been reported in the
exploration of emerging nanocarriers for breast cancer therapy.
Keywords: Breast cancer, Drug conjugates, Inorganic nanoparticles, Lipid-based nanocarriers, Nanocarriers, Targeted delivery, Therapeutic efficacy, Polymeric nanoparticles.