Recent advances in small-molecule fluorescent probes for diagnosis of cancer cells/tissues

Cancer has always been covetous to the health of human beings, and countless people die every year due to cancer. Accurate diagnosis of cancer is an important prerequisite for its treatment. On the one hand, accurate localization of the cancer region is beneficial for later symptomatic treatment. On the other hand, the cure rate of early cancer is often very high, which also reflects the importance of accurate diagnosis of cancer. The visualized cancer diagnosis method is beneficial to localize the cancer site and determine the boundary between the cancer area and the normal tissue area, so as to achieve the purpose of accurate cancer diagnosis. Fluorescence imaging technology, meeting the needs of visual diagnosis, based on small-molecule fluorescent probes has the advantages of non-invasiveness, high sensitivity and high spatiotemporal resolution, and many fluorescent probes for detecting biomarkers have been designed to distinguish cancer cells/tissues and normal cells/tissues, as well as visualize solid tumors. Based on this, we reviewed their design strategies and applications in cancer diagnosis from the perspective of small-molecule fluorescent probes, summarized and classified biomarkers that could be used for cancer diagnosis, and emphasized their roles in medical imaging. This review aims to help researchers to design more excellent probes for cancer diagnosis and make contributions to the future precision medicine.