Molecular insights and novel approaches for targeting tumor metastasis

In recent years, due to the e ffective drug delivery and preciseness of tumor sites or microenvironment, the targeted drug delivery approaches have gained ample attention for tumor metastasis therapy. The conventional treatment approaches for metastasis therapy have reported with immense adverse e ffects because they exhibited maximum probability of killing the carcinogenic cells along with healthy cells. The tumor vasculature, com- prising of vasculogenic impressions and angiogenesis, greatly depends upon the growth and metastasis in the tumors. Therefore, various nanocarriers-based delivery approaches for targeting to tumor vasculature have been attempted as e fficient and potential approaches for the treatment of tumor metastasis and the associated lesions. Furthermore, the targeted drug delivery approaches have found to be most apt way to overcome from all the limitations and adverse e ffects associated with the conventional therapies. In this review, various approaches for efficient targeting of pharmacologically active chemotherapeutics against tumor metastasis with the cohesive objectives of prognosis, tracking and therapy are summarized.