Theranostic nanoparticles for enzyme-activatable fluorescence imaging and photodynamic/chemo dual therapy of triple-negative breast cancer

Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) are characterized by tumors that does not express estrogen and progesterone receptor, as well as human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) gene expression (1,2). TNBC patients account for approximately 15% of total breast cancer patients. It is associated with poor prognosis due to high rate of recurrence and distance metastasis, lack of response to hormonal or HER2-targeted therapies, and partial response to chemotherapy (3). Therefore, development of new strategies to overcome therapeutic limitations of TNBC is of great importance. In the recent studies, nanomedicine-based chemo/gene dual therapy and chemo/photothermal/gene triple therapy of TNBC showed high potential as a new therapeutic option for TNBC (4,5)