Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Aug 3:34:102165.
doi: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2025.102165. eCollection 2025 Oct.

Nanomedicines for the treatment of genitourinary neoplasms

Shaowen Wang  1 , Yongzhi Li  2   3   4 , Xiaoting Sun  5 , Tianping Song  6 , You Wang  7 , Ziyue Xue  6 , Yang Guo  7 , Jiawei Wang  6 , Zhijia Cui  6 , Peijian Lu  6 , Haifeng Huang  6 , Diqing Pan  7 , Dali Xu  6 , Shuailin You  8 , Wei Liu  2 , Tianlin Wang  6 , Huazhe Yang  6 , Yili Liu  2   3
Affiliations
Review

Nanomedicines for the treatment of genitourinary neoplasms

Shaowen Wang et al. Mater Today Bio. .

Abstract

Genitourinary neoplasms, accounting for 20-25 % of all malignant tumors, are associated with high mortality rates and pose significant challenges to clinical treatment. Especially for young patients who have reproductive demands, pharmacotherapy is a promising non-surgical strategy to improve the survival rate and quality of life. However, the distinctive interface between physiological milieu complicates effective drug delivery. Nanomedicines offer distinct advantages, including mitigating clearance, enabling precise tumor targeting, and intracellular drug delivery. Unlike most reviews about the area, which focused on a specified tumor or nanomedicine, this review, for the first time, systematically summarized the application of extensively investigated nanomedicines in the entire genitourinary neoplasms, and provided the latest and most comprehensive insights. Furthermore, we proposed the shortage of therapeutic activity and challenges in nano-therapy, and highlighted the potential of innovative and functional nanomedicines as well as emerging technology.

Keywords: Genitourinary neoplasms; Nanomedicine; Therapeutics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financialinterests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influencethe work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Strategies for enhancing the accumulation and penetration of NMs into tumors.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The CAPIR cascade for cancer NMs delivery, special attention to the routes of NMs cellular uptake and intracellular transport, and three primary strategies to surpass the lysosomal barrier.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Barriers to drug delivery in bladder cancer and countermeasures. (A) Permeability barriers in the bladder wall for intravesical drug delivery. (B) A nanomotors-in-hydrogel system with mucoadhesive and permeability for urothelium-oriented intravesical drug delivery. Reproduced from Ref. [63] with permission from Springer Nature, copyright 2024.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
PC therapeutic strategies with NMs targeting cell membrane surface receptors. (A) Biomarkers on the surface of prostate cancer cells. (B) CD44 and NRP-1 dual receptor-mediated transcytosis promote intracellular delivery and the penetration into prostate cancer. Reproduced from Ref. [80] with permission from Elsevier, copyright 2015.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Feasibility of surmounting mucosal and mucus barriers for transvaginal administration in cervical cancer treatment. (A) A paclitaxel-based mucoadhesive nanogel featuring multivalent interactions for cervical cancer therapy. Reproduced from Ref. [109] with permission from Wiley, copyright 2019. (B) PEGylated docetaxel nanocrystals modified with trans-activator of transcription peptide were designed for intravaginal delivery. Reproduced from Ref. [110] with permission from Elsevier, copyright 2021.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
The challenges and prospects of NMs in genitourinary neoplasms. (A) Translation timeline and challenges. (B) The role of AI in nanomedicine synthesis, understanding nano-bio interactions, and clinical trials.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Miller K.D., Nogueira L., Devasia T., Mariotto A.B., Yabroff K.R., Jemal A., Kramer J., Siegel R.L. Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2022. CA Cancer J. Clin. 2022;72:409–436. doi: 10.3322/caac.21731. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zeng Q., Chen C., Chen D., Zhang G., Wang X. Non-surgical therapeutic strategies for non-melanoma skin cancers. Curr.Treat. Option Oncol. 2023;24:1978–1993. doi: 10.1007/s11864-023-01154-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zi H., He S.-H., Leng X.-Y., Xu X.-F., Huang Q., Weng H., Zhu C., Li L.-Y., Gu J.-M., Li X.-H. Global, regional, and national burden of kidney, bladder, and prostate cancers and their attributable risk factors, 1990–2019, military. Med. Res. 2021;8:1–15. doi: 10.1186/s40779-021-00354-z. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nikitin M.P., Zelepukin I.V., Shipunova V.O., Sokolov I.L., Deyev S.M., Nikitin P.I. Enhancement of the blood-circulation time and performance of nanomedicines via the forced clearance of erythrocytes. Nat. Biomed. Eng. 2020;4:717–731. doi: 10.1038/s41551-020-0581-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bellat V., Michel A.O., Thomas C., Stokol T., Choi B.B., Law B. A urinary drug-disposing approach as an alternative to intravesical chemotherapy for treating nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer. Cancer Res. 2022;82:1409–1422. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.Can-21-2897. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources