Theranostic application of nanoemulsions in chemotherapy

• Theranostic nanoemulsions hold possibilities to detect and treat cancer effectively. • Targeting theranostic approaches received great attention for site-specific delivery. • Theranostic nanoemulsion can improve the quality of life of cancer patients. • This platform has the potential to obtain a personalized treatment. Theranostics has the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of cancer, where novel drug delivery systems could be used to detect the disease at an early stage with instantaneous treatment. Various preclinical approaches of nanoemulsions with entrapped contrast and chemotherapeutic agents have been documented to act specifically on the tumor microenvironment (TME) for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. However, bringing these theranostic nanoemulsions through preclinical trials to patients requires several fundamental hurdles to be overcome, including the in vivo behavior of the delivery tool, degradation, and clearance from the system, as well as long-term toxicities. Here, we discuss recent advances in the application of nanoemulsions in molecular imaging with simultaneous therapeutic efficacy in a single delivery system. Nanoemulsions have a theranostic role with promising antitumor efficacy and multimodal diagnostic functionalities. Novel targeting nanoemulsion strategies can deliver cargo specifically to the cancer microenvironment.