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Globally, cancer is growing at an alarming pace, which calls for development of more efficient cancer treatments. Conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy have become crucial first-line clinical treatments for cancer. However, along with their wide usage, limited therapeutic effects, severe adverse reactions, unaffordable costs, and complicated operations lead to failures of these treatments. Moreover, the emergence of multidrug resistance inhibits the longtime usage of chemotherapeutics. One of the major causes of treatment failure is the insufficient sensitivity of cancer cells to therapeutic drugs or treatments. With the rigorous development of nanotechnology, tailored nanoparticles can efficiently sensitize malignant cells by inducing intracellular structural and functional changes, which could affect vital intracellular processes such as metabolism, signal conduction, proliferation, cell death as well as intracellular drug delivery. Here, we review recent advances in nanomaterial-assisted sensitization of oncotherapy, and challenges and strategies in the development of nanomedical approaches.

Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 25 October 2017
Revised: 08 December 2017
Accepted: 09 December 2017
Published: 22 May 2018
Issue date: June 2018

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2017

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31600808), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 7164316). This work was also supported by the Key Laboratory of Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, CAS (No. NSKF201601). This work was supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation key projects (Nos. 31630027 and 31430031). The authors also appreciate the support of the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA09030301).

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