Nanoparticles, a promising treatment for gastric cancer

Globally, gastric cancer (GC), as a fatal malignant tumor, remains a significant health challenge. Thus, it is imperative to explore novel treatment strategies. Despite the fact that the survival rate of GC has improved over the past few decades, the median survival for patients with advanced GC is still less than one year. Recently, nanoparticles (NPs), as a potential approach for designing new treatment strategies, such as gold NPs (AuNPs) and metal oxides NPs (MONPs), not only possesses advantages such as multi-functional imaging and high stability, but also can deliver drugs, simultaneously achieve diagnostic and therapeutic effects. With the development and maturation of this technology, an increasing number of nano-drugs have been utilized in the diagnosis and treatment of GC. In this review, we have provided a detailed and separate elaboration on the NPs that play diagnostic, therapeutic and dual-functional roles in GC-related research. We also introduce the clinical research of nanomedicine in GC over the past few decades. Furthermore, we probed into the limitations of contemporary nanomedicine treatments and the future research directions. Gastric cancer remains the fifth most common malignant tumor worldwide, at present, the treatment effect for patients in the advanced stage is still not satisfactory. With the development of science and technology, nanoparticles have increasingly come into people's view. In this review, we summarized the functionalized nanomaterials modified by different methods for gastric cancer and elaborated on them in detail from the aspects of diagnosis, treatment and theranostics. In addition, we pointed out the differences and connections of nanoparticles with different shapes in tumor management. We also introduced the nanoparticles currently used in clinical research for gastric cancer and proposed the possible challenges and solutions for the future application of them in gastric cancer at the end of this article. • Gastric cancer is a fatal malignant tumor and remains a significant health challenge. • Three aspects including diagnosis, treatment and integration are elaborated on the application of nanomaterials in gastric cancer. • Summary of clinical studies related to gastric cancer. • Summary of the limitations of nanomedicine and future research directions.