Nanocarriers in Drug Delivery Systems: Advances, Challenges and Future Perspectives

Nanotechnology has become an integral component of advanced drug delivery systems, offering innovative strategies to overcome the limitations of conventional therapies. Nanocarrier-based drug delivery systems are rapidly evolving, utilizing diverse nanoparticles as carriers to achieve precise, controlled, and targeted drug delivery. These nanocarriers are biocompatible, stable, and multifunctional, enabling their application in both therapeutic and diagnostic (theranostic) approaches. Due to their nanoscale size, large surface area, and tunable physicochemical properties, nanocarriers enhance drug bioavailability, stability, and therapeutic efficacy while reducing systemic toxicity and adverse effects. Nanocarriers have shown significant potential in addressing challenges associated with traditional antitumor drug delivery, such as poor specificity, rapid drug release, severe side effects, and damage to healthy tissues. By facilitating selective accumulation at target sites, nanocarriers improve the therapeutic performance of anticancer agents. Recent advances include the delivery of bio-therapeutic, chemotherapeutic, and immunotherapeutic agents using sophisticated nanocarrier platforms. This review highlights the role of nanocarriers in drug delivery and discusses strategies for achieving optimal therapeutic outcomes. Various nanocarrier systems, including inorganic and organic nanoparticles, dendrimers, liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, polymersomes, micelles, nanoemulsions, carbon nanotubes, and gold nanoparticles, are reviewed with respect to their properties, applications, clinical potential, challenges, and future prospects.