Nanodiamonds and their potential applications in breast cancer therapy: a narrative review

Abstract

Breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death among women worldwide. With the projected increase in breast cancer cases in recent years, optimising treatment becomes increasingly important. Current treatment modalities in breast cancer present major limitations, including chemoresistance, dose-limiting adverse effects and lack of selectivity in aggressive subtypes of breast cancers such as triple-negative breast cancer. Nanodiamonds have demonstrated promising outcomes in preclinical models from their unique surface characteristics allowing optimised delivery of various therapeutic agents, overcoming some of the significant hurdles in conventional treatment modalities. This review will present an update on preclinical findings of nanodiamond-based drug delivery systems for breast cancer therapy to date, challenges with the use of nanodiamonds along with considerations for future research.

Keywords: Breast cancer; Carbon nanoparticles; Drug delivery systems; Nanodiamonds; Precision medicine; Targeted therapy.