Recent progress in nanomedicine: therapeutic, diagnostic and theranostic applications

In recent years, the use of nanomedicine formulations for therapeutic and diagnostic applications has increased exponentially. Many different systems and strategies have been developed for drug targeting to pathological sites, as well as for visualizing and quantifying important (patho-) physiological processes. In addition, ever more efforts have been undertaken to combine diagnostic and therapeutic properties within a single nanomedicine formulation. These socalled nanotheranostics are able to provide valuable information on drug delivery, drug release and drug efficacy, and they are considered to be highly useful for personalizing nanomedicine-based (chemo-) therapeutic interventions.