Nanomaterials-based imaging diagnosis and therapy of cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular diseases refer to a group of the circulatory system disorders, including atherosclerosis, thrombosis, myocardial/cerebral infarction and the following ischemia-reperfusion injury, which have become the leading cause of disability and death globally. In the past decades, great efforts have been devoted in the medical care of the diseases. However, their imaging diagnosis and drug treatment still suffer from the poor bioavailability of the contrast agents and drugs at the lesions, leading to low signal-to-noise ratio and unsatisfactory therapeutic results. The rapid development of nanotechnology has reshaped the pattern of modern medicine, giving opportunities to deliver the active agents precisely to the targeted sites. In this review, we summarized and discussed the design strategies and main significance of the engineered nanomaterials for the diagnosis and therapy of diverse cardiovascular diseases, including nanoprobes as contrast agents, nanocarriers for drug delivery and multifunctional theranostic nanosystems. The main challenges, critical issues and potential research targets of nanomedicines in this field were also prospected.