Engineered Hydrogels in Cancer Therapy and Diagnosis

Abstract

Over the last decade, numerous investigations have attempted to clarify the intricacies of tumor development to propose effective approaches for cancer treatment. Thanks to the unique properties of hydrogels, researchers have made significant progress in tumor model reconstruction, tumor diagnosis, and associated therapies. Notably, hydrogel-based systems can be adjusted to respond to cancer-specific hallmarks and/or external stimuli. These well-known drug reservoirs can be used as smart carriers for multiple cargos, including both naked and nanoparticle-encapsulated chemotherapeutics, genes, and radioisotopes. Recent works have attempted to specialize hydrogels for cancer research; we comprehensively review this topic for the first time, synthesizing past results and defining paths for future work.

Keywords: 3D tumor model; cancer diagnosis; drug delivery; gene therapy; hydrogel.