Abstract
Brain tumors pose a major threat to human health due to difficult treatment,
rapid progression, and poor prognosis, resulting in a terrible fatality rate that has
remained high over the years. As arteries have limited drug permeability into brain
tumor tissue, the success rate of chemotherapy remains low. Considering the anatomic
concerns of brain tumors and the interaction between the blood-brain barrier (BBB)
and nano-particles (NPs), nanotechnology is deemed an attractive approach as it has the
potential to increase brain drug distribution. Theranostic strategies have also been
proposed in recent years and they are seen promising. NPs are considered ideal due to
their size, ease of surface modification and, adaptability to integrating several
functional components in one system. In lieu of this, the design of nano-particles with
therapeutic and diagnostic uses has increased tremendously, particularly in cancer
treatment. This two-pronged technique aids in understanding tumor tissue location,
treatment progress, nanoparticle’s bio-distribution and, its efficacy as it is particularly
valuable for personalized medicine-based treatments. In this chapter, we will focus on
the properties of the blood-brain barrier and the blood-brain tumor barrier (BBTB), two
important hurdles in brain-tumor targeted delivery, and the targeting strategies that aim
at different stages of brain tumor growth and development as well as their recent
advances in brain tumor-targeted novel nano-drug delivery systems.