Smart nanocarriers in glucose transporters-targeted delivery of anticancer drugs

Abstract In many countries, cancer still holds the second rank of the cause of death after cardiovascular diseases. Unfortunately, efforts such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and aggressive surgeries have not been effective enough in cancer therapy. Fortunately, in recent years there have been significant developments in cancer therapy mainly in the improvement of current treatment efficacies. As one of these developments, targeted drug delivery using smart nanocarriers has gained high attention of researchers. This chapter summarizes one important approach in targeted drug delivery systems namely transporter-targeted nano-drug delivery systems (TTNDDS). In this approach, various transporters that have been specifically expressed or overexpressed on tumor cells are being targeted by smart nanocarriers. In this chapter, although some aspects of TTNDDS have been discussed, only glucose transporters targeting in TTNDDS in the treatment of cancer have been investigated in detail.