Exploration of Site-Specific Drug Targeting—A Review on EPR-, Stimuli-, Chemical-, and Receptor-Based Approaches as Potential Drug Targeting Methods in Cancer Treatment

Table 1

Examples of different exogenous stimuli-based drug delivery options and different carrier systems along with their application.

Stimulus	Carrier	Associated cargo	Application	Ref
Temperature	Micelles	Nile red doxorubicin	Efficient drug delivery to cancer microenvironments through thermally stimulated drug release	[104]
	Complexes	pDNA	Gene therapy of tumors	[105]
	Nanocapsules	siRNA	In HeLa cancer cells, the intracellular delivery of siRNA has enhanced	[106]
	siRNAsome	Doxorubicin; siRNA	Drug action against multidrug resistant cancer	[107]
	Polymersomes	Doxorubicin	Association between thermal and pH-responsive drug release means a dual thermal system.	[108]
Ultrasound	CaCO3 nanoparticles	Doxorubicin	Ultrasound imaging of tumor, drug release, and tumor therapy	[109]
	Liposome	Doxorubicin	Cancer diagnosis and light- and temperature-based chemotherapy	[110]
Magnetic	Mesoporous iron oxide nanoparticles	Perfluorohexane and Fe3O4/Fe2O3 nanoparticles, and paclitaxel	Thermalchemotherapy aiming active tumor	[111]
	Polymeric micelles	La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 and doxorubicin	Effective breast cancer theranostics	[112]
	Magnetic nanoparticles	Fe3O4/Fe2O3 nanoparticles	Treatment of primary along with metastatic lung carcinoma	[113]
	Nanoparticles	Fe3O4/Fe2O3 nanoparticles doxorubicin	Chemotherapy and hyperthermia induction through the magnet to treat active tumors.	[114]
	Porous magnetic microspheres	Fe3O4/Fe2O3 nanoparticles and perfluorohexane	Tumor treatment by stimulating droplets vaporization	[115]
Light	Three-layered polyplex micelles	pDNA and photoresponsive materials	Systemic gene transfer in tumor	[116]
	Nanorods	DNA; doxorubicin	Multidrugresistant cancer cells treatment	[117]
	Nanogel	Doxorubicin; graphene	Diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer	[118]
	Carbon-based nanotubes	Doxorubicin	Light- and temperature-based therapy and chemotherapy	[119]
	Plasma membrane-based nanocarriers	Doxorubicin and indocyanine green	Light- and temperature-based therapy and chemotherapy	[120]