Modern-day search for the novel agents (their preparation and consequent implementation) to effectively treat the cancer is mainly fuelled by the historical failure of the conventional treatment modalities. Apart from that, the complexities such as higher rate of cell mutations, variable tumor microenvironment, patient-specific disparities, and the evolving nature of cancers have made this search much stronger in the latest times. As a result of this, in about two decades, the theranostic nanoparticles (TNPs) – i.e., nanoparticles that integrate therapeutic and diagnostic characteristics – have been developed. The examples for TNPs include mesoporous silica nanoparticles, luminescence nanoparticles, carbon-based nanomaterials, metal nanoparticles, and magnetic nanoparticles. These TNPs have emerged as single and powerful cancer-treating multifunctional nanoplatforms, as they widely provide the necessary functionalities to overcome the previous/conventional limitations including lack of the site-specific delivery of anti-cancer drugs, and real-time continuous monitoring of the target cancer sites while performing therapeutic actions. This has been mainly possible due to the association of the as-developed TNPs with the already-available unique diagnostic (e.g., luminescence, photoacoustic, and magnetic resonance imaging) and therapeutic (e.g., photothermal, photodynamic, hyperthermia therapy) modalities in the biomedical field. In this review, we have discussed in detail about the recent developments on the aforementioned important TNPs without/with targeting ability (i.e., attaching them with ligands or tumor-specific antibodies) and also the strategies that are implemented to increase their tumor accumulation and to enhance their theranostic efficacies for effective biomedical cancer treatments.

现代寻找有效治疗癌症的新型药物（它们的制备和随后的实施）主要是由于传统治疗方式的历史失败。除此之外，诸如更高的细胞突变率、可变的肿瘤微环境、特定于患者的差异以及癌症不断发展的性质等复杂性使得这种搜索在最近的时代变得更加强大。因此，在大约 20 年的时间里，已经开发出治疗诊断纳米粒子 (TNP)，即整合了治疗和诊断特性的纳米粒子。TNP的实例包括中孔二氧化硅纳米颗粒，发光纳米颗粒，碳基纳米材料，金属纳米颗粒和磁性纳米颗粒。这些 TNP 已成为单一且强大的癌症治疗多功能纳米平台，因为它们广泛提供了必要的功能来克服以前/传统的局限性，包括缺乏抗癌药物的位点特异性递送，以及实时连续监测在执行治疗动作时靶向癌症部位。这主要是由于已开发的 TNP 与生物医学中已经可用的独特诊断（例如，发光、光声和磁共振成像）和治疗（例如，光热、光动力、热疗）模式相关联。场地。在这篇综述中，我们详细讨论了上述不具有/具有靶向能力的重要 TNP（即，