Polymer Nanoplatforms at Work in Prostate Cancer Therapy

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common male urogenital malignancy worldwide. Surgery, endocrine therapy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are the main clinical management options for PCa. However, these three therapies each have limitations. For example, surgery is not suitable for the advanced PCa patients with extensive metastases, and radiotherapy causes serious side effects. Primary endocrine therapy promotes the progression of hormone‐sensitive PCa into the castration‐resistant prostate cancer. Therefore, considering these drawbacks, chemotherapy has become an effective and extensive treatment for PCa. Among the modern therapeutic strategies against advanced PCa, polymer‐nanocarrier‐incorporated formulations have gradually emerged due to their well‐controlled release profiles and improved tumor targeting abilities. The drug delivery systems based on polymer nanoplatforms passively target tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention effect. Simultaneously, stimuli‐responsive polymer nanoplatforms unload cargoes in response to certain stimuli in the tumor area. Furthermore, the active targeting ligand‐conjugated polymer nanoformulations against PCa‐specific markers have also achieved great success in PCa therapies. Herein, the advanced polymer nanoplatforms for PCa therapy are reviewed, while the future development of polymer nanoplatforms for PCa therapy is also predicted.