Radiotherapy has been, and will continue to be, a critical modality to treat cancer. Since the discovery of radiation-induced cytotoxicity in the late 19th century, both external and internal radiation sources have provided tremendous benefits to extend the life of cancer patients. Despite the dramatic improvement of radiation techniques, however, one challenge persists to limit the anti-tumor efficacy of radiotherapy, which is to maximize the deposited dose in tumor while sparing the rest of the healthy vital organs. Nanomedicine has stepped into the spotlight of cancer diagnosis and therapy during the past decades. Nanoparticles can potentiate radiotherapy by specifically delivering radionuclides or radiosensitizers into tumors, therefore enhancing the efficacy while alleviating the toxicity of radiotherapy. This paper reviews recent advances in synthetic nanoparticles for radiotherapy and radiosensitization, with a focus on the enhancement of in vivo anti-tumor activities. We also provide a brief discussion on radiation-associated toxicities as this is an area that, up to date, has been largely missing in the literature and should be closely examined in future studies involving nanoparticle-mediated radiosensitization.

中文翻译：

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用于在癌症治疗中输送放射性同位素和放射增敏剂的合成纳米颗粒。


放射治疗一直并将继续是治疗癌症的重要方式。自从 19 世纪末发现辐射诱导的细胞毒性以来，外部和内部辐射源都为延长癌症患者的生命提供了巨大的益处。然而，尽管放射技术取得了巨大进步，但限制放射治疗抗肿瘤功效的挑战仍然存在，即最大限度地增加肿瘤中的沉积剂量，同时不伤害其他健康的重要器官。在过去的几十年里，纳米医学已经成为癌症诊断和治疗的焦点。纳米颗粒可以通过特异性地将放射性核素或放射增敏剂递送到肿瘤中来增强放射治疗，从而在提高疗效的同时减轻放射治疗的毒性。本文综述了用于放射治疗和放射增敏的合成纳米粒子的最新进展，重点是增强体内抗肿瘤活性。我们还对与辐射相关的毒性进行了简要讨论，因为迄今为止，这一领域在文献中很大程度上缺失，并且应该在涉及纳米粒子介导的放射增敏的未来研究中仔细研究。