Following its discovery more than 30 years ago, the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect has become the guiding principle for cancer nanomedicine development. Over the years, the tumor-targeted drug delivery field has made significant progress, as evidenced by the approval of several nanomedicinal anticancer drugs. Recently, however, the existence and the extent of the EPR effect - particularly in patients - have become the focus of intense debate. This is partially due to the disbalance between the huge number of preclinical cancer nanomedicine papers and relatively small number of cancer nanomedicine drug products reaching the market. To move the field forward, we have to improve our understanding of the EPR effect, of its cancer type-specific pathophysiology, of nanomedicine interactions with the heterogeneous tumor microenvironment, of nanomedicine behavior in the body, and of translational aspects that specifically complicate nanomedicinal drug development. In this virtual special issue, 24 research articles and reviews discussing different aspects of the EPR effect and cancer nanomedicine are collected, together providing a comprehensive and complete overview of the current state-of-the-art and future directions in tumor-targeted drug delivery.

中文翻译：

---

EPR效果及超越：改善肿瘤靶向和癌症纳米药物治疗功效的策略。

在30多年的发现之后，增强的渗透性和保留（EPR）效果已成为癌症纳米医学发展的指导原则。多年来，以肿瘤为靶点的药物递送领域取得了长足的进步，这已被数种纳米医学抗癌药物的批准所证明。然而，最近，EPR作用的存在和程度，特别是在患者中，已经成为激烈辩论的焦点。部分原因是由于大量的临床前癌症纳米药物论文与相对较少的进入市场的癌症纳米药物产品之间的不平衡。为了推动该领域的发展，我们必须加深对EPR效应，其癌症类型特异性病理生理学，纳米药物与异质性肿瘤微环境相互作用的了解，体内纳米医学行为的研究，以及使纳米医学药物开发特别复杂的转化方面的研究。在此虚拟特刊中，收集了24篇研究文章和评论，讨论了EPR效应和癌症纳米药物的不同方面，一起全面，完整地概述了肿瘤靶向药物输送的最新技术和未来方向。