ABSTRACT
Today’s challenge to find safe and innovative nanocarriers for therapeutic as well as diagnostic applications remains as critical as ever. However, over the past decade, various nanomaterial systems have been developed as potent tools to simultaneously monitor and treat disease. In particular, among various kinds of nanomaterial systems such as solid-lipid, magnetic, micellar, and linear macromolecular nanoparticles, dendritic nanostructures have proved to be appropriate nanoparticles in the medical applications. In this entry, we define the term “theranostic” based on dendritic architectures from the early 1990s that afford a promising avenue toward nanomedicine. To define the boundaries of theranostic based on dendritic architectures, this entry first introduces, in brief, the imaging modalities as well as the objective for generating large-molecular-weight contrast agents such as dendritic architectures to modify the pharmacokinetic disadvantages of presently available small-sized agents. Secondly, it highlights the nanopharmaceutical properties of dendritic structures in the growing field of theranostics. And, finally, an overview of select applications that make dendritic architectures optimal candidates for theranostics applications has been mentioned.
