Recent Advances in Efficacy of using Doxorubicin Gold Nanoparticles for Chemo-, Radio-, Photothermal, and Photodynamic Therapy

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely used in drug delivery systems specifically for chemo-, radio-, photothermal, and photodynamic therapy. Due to the lack of selectivity toward tumor cells, the main target in therapies is to deliver drugs to cancer cells to reduce side effects. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been described as “promising nanocarriers for therapeutics” due to many properties such as low inherent toxicity, high water solubility, and biocompatibility. Many research groups have focused on taking advantage of two or more therapies simultaneously to have increased efficacy using a lower dosage of the therapeutic drug and reduced multi-drug resistance (MDR). Alternatively, doxorubicin (Dox) modification has been used as a strategy for increased selectivity toward target cells. Over the years, many studies have been performed on NPs to eliminate side effects using polymers, peptides, proteins, DNA, metallic NPs, microgels, and hydrogels on drug carriers. In this review, recent advances of using Dox-AuNPs for chemo-, radio-, photothermal, photodynamic, and combination therapy are briefly discussed, and we also highlight recent progress in the application of Dox-AuNPs for effective cancer therapy.