ABSTRACT
Cancer has been a significant threat to human health with more than eight million cancer-related deaths each year worldwide. This chapter provides a review of the various plasmonic-active nanoparticles developed for a wide variety of applications ranging from biomedical diagnostics to disease treatment. Bioimaging remains one of the most relied-upon methods in disease diagnosis. The development of plasmonic-active nanosystems has received increasing interest for use in a wide variety of applications ranging from molecular manufacturing, environmental monitoring and chemical sensing to medical diagnostics and therapy. The photothermal effect has been widely used to disrupt non-covalent interactions between nanoparticles and drug, resulting in the release of encapsulated drugs. Regulation of the expression of genes that are involved in cancer-related pathways is the goal of various experimental cancer treatment approaches. Nanotheranostics, combining diagnostic and therapeutic functions into one nanoplatform, has attracted great attention due to its promise as a powerful tool for personalized therapy.
