Advanced Nanomedicines for the Treatment and Diagnosis of Myocardial Infarction and Heart Failure

Nanotechnology has impacted tremendously the medical research with increasing importance in the development of new therapeutic approaches and applications. Among these applications, the use of nanocarriers has gained particular interest in order to achieve successful delivery of therapeutics and imaging agents for the treatment and diagnostics of different diseases, such as cancer, infections, diabetes, lung, brain and cardiovascular diseases. Heart failure (HF) is a complex clinical syndrome derived from multiple causes that arise from secondary to inherited or acquired abnormalities of cardiac structure and/or function. Myocardial infarction (MI), the major cause of HF, continues to be an increasing problem in terms of morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs worldwide. Currently, established pharmacological drugs have proven to be effective in reducing hypertrophy, remodeling of the myocardium, and in reducing morbidity and mortality in patients with HF. However, despite optimal treatment with existing drugs, the prognosis of HF is poor and also the possible deleterious effects of therapeutic agents must be considered when used at doses required for the desired therapeutic effect. Therefore, novel therapeutic strategies are urgently needed to prevent high morbidity and mortality associated with MI and HF. In this review, we will present recent developments in nanomedicine research envisaged to have an important impact on the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, particularly MI. In addition, we will discuss the use of different advanced modified nanosystems for molecular imaging and therapeutics of MI, presenting several in vitro and in vivo examples. Finally, we will conclude with an overview of the potential of nanomedicines in the future for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Keywords: Cardiac biomarkers, cardiovascular diseases, imaging, myocardial infarction, nanomedicine, nanoparticles.