Carbon nanotubes: A review of novel strategies for cancer diagnosis and treatment

•Different CNT functionalization methods by varied molecules are studied.•The diverse and novel strategies of using CNTs in cancer diagnosis are reviewed.•Many new approaches for drug delivery purposes are introduced.•Studies are categorized by the studied the cancer types.

Recently, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted a lot of attention in the field of cancer diagnosis and therapy. The probability of variable functionalization, compatibility with biological systems, and the thermodynamic properties of CNTs might be the main reasons for such vast investigations. The aim of this study is to review the conducted researches in this field. Studies regarding to the contribution of CNTs in the diagnosis of cancer are reviewed, and the more accurate techniques which need lowest amounts of samples are introduced. In the case of cancer therapy, the studies are categorized in two main classes based on the conducted therapy strategies, including targeted drug delivery systems (DDS), and thermal ablation. In both schemes, use of chemical conjugation is the crucial parts of the studies, which is also emphasized in this review. It is tried to classify the researches based on the cancer type, and introduce the novel strategies developed for both diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The focus is mostly on the biomedical aspect of the methodologies and the subsequent biological responses of the cancer cells to the conducted procedures.