title: Personalized nanomedicine.
abstract: Personalized medicine aims to individualize chemotherapeutic interventions on the basis of ex vivo and in vivo information on patient- and disease-specific characteristics. By noninvasively visualizing how well image-guided nanomedicines-that is, submicrometer-sized drug delivery systems containing both drugs and imaging agents within a single formulation, and designed to more specifically deliver drug molecules to pathologic sites-accumulate at the target site, patients likely to respond to nanomedicine-based therapeutic interventions may be preselected. In addition, by longitudinally monitoring how well patients respond to nanomedicine-based therapeutic interventions, drug doses and treatment protocols can be individualized and optimized during follow-up. Furthermore, noninvasive imaging information on the accumulation of nanomedicine formulations in potentially endangered healthy tissues may be used to exclude patients from further treatment. Consequently, combining noninvasive imaging with tumor-targeted drug delivery seems to hold significant potential for personalizing nanomedicine-based chemotherapeutic interventions, to achieve delivery of the right drug to the right location in the right patient at the right time.
authors: Department of Experimental Molecular Imaging, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany. tlammers@ukaachen.de
authors: Twan
authors: T
authors: Lammers
authors: Larissa Y
authors: LY
authors: Rizzo
authors: Gert
authors: G
authors: Storm
authors: Fabian
authors: F
authors: Kiessling
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D050997:Nanomedicine; D057285:Precision Medicine; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical