Multifunctional dendrimers for theranostic applications

Treating cancer patients with traditional therapies presents challenges and leads to undesirable side effects due to improper real-time diagnosis and a lack of monitoring therapeutics inside the body. If therapeutics can be tracked inside the body, this approach can provide information about where a high percentage of therapeutics is distributing and accumulated. With this information, treatment procedures can be implemented effectively to reduce nonspecific accumulation and toxicity to normal tissues. In this chapter, we discussed the strategies for synthesis of dendrimers and their properties, and loading or conjugating methods for therapeutic, imaging, and targeting ligands. We also provided examples of dendrimers used in theranostic applications. Particular to theranostic applications, we described methods of loading therapeutics, targeting ligands, and imaging agents for optical fluorescence, computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and quantum dots (QDs) in multiple types of cancer.