Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2015; 21(28): 8473-8477
Published online Jul 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i28.8473
Gastrointestinal cancers in the era of theranostics: Updates and future perspectives
Marwan Ghosn, Hampig Raphael Kourie, Samer Tabchi
Marwan Ghosn, Hampig Raphael Kourie, Samer Tabchi, Hematology-Oncology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Saint Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon
Author contributions: Ghosn M initiated the review; Kourie HR and Tabchi S performed the review and wrote and analyzed the data.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors confirm that they do not have any conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Marwan Ghosn, MD, Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Saint Joseph University, Alfred Naccache Street, PO Box 166830, Beirut 1104-2020, Lebanon. mghosn.hdf@usj.edu.lb
Telephone: +961-3-226842 Fax: +961-1-613397
Received: January 29, 2015
Peer-review started: January 29, 2015
First decision: March 10, 2015
Revised: March 22, 2015
Accepted: May 2, 2015
Article in press: May 4, 2015
Published online: July 28, 2015
Abstract

Theranostics are one of the practical aspects of personalized medicine. This concept was designed to describe a material combining diagnosis, treatment and follow up of a disease. It evolved and included molecular targeting and nanotechnologies that incorporate both diagnosis and therapeutics. In this editorial, we are presenting briefly the concept and evolution of theranostics, highlighting many applications of theranostics in daily practice and discussing future perspectives and aspects of this model in gastro-intestincal cancers.

Keywords: Theranostics, Gastrointestinal cancer, Nanoparticles, Nanotheranostics, Molecular targeting

Core tip: This editorial presents briefly the concept and evolution of theranostics. It describes the actual use of this treatment modality in gastrointestinal (GI) cancer going from the success story of theranostics in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors to the promising results in gastric and colon cancer. Future perspectives of theranostics in GI cancers in nanotechnology and biomarkers fields are also reported in the end of this editorial.