ABSTRACT
Cancer is a malignant disease that affects millions of people worldwide and is one of the leading causes of death. An emerging new class of drugs known as aptamers shows promising potential in targeting cancer stem cells (CSC) for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Aptamer-mediated drug delivery to CSCs showed great potential in tumor penetration, reduced off-target effect, and reduction in stem cell properties, making aptamers a novel therapeutic strategy in targeting CSCs. Targeted anticancer therapy aims to improve the treatment response and overall survival of patients. Conventional cancer treatment mostly relies on passive targeting by the enhanced permeability and retention effect by utilizing the differences in vasculature organization between normal tissues and tumors to achieve preferential accumulation of anticancer agents in tumors. The wide variety of applications for epithelial cell adhesion molecule-specific aptamers shows promise as a therapeutic and a diagnostic tool against cancer.
