CHAPTER 4: RISKS AND BENEFITS OF MEDICAL NANOTECHNOLOGIES: A BALANCING TO BE RECONSIDERED

Abstract

Nanomedicine opens new diagnostic and therapeutic perspectives. So far, even if fewhealth nanoproducts are on the market, more than a hundred are in clinical trials, mainlyin oncology. In fact, the uncertainty that characterizes the knowledge of risks related tonanoparticles, such as the difficulty of adapting evaluation methodologies to the singular-ity of each of them, in turn, affects the establishment of the benefit-risk balance, prior toany marketing. The objective of this study is to show that, facing the pitfall of risk assess-ment, the measurement of a global benefit, combining medical efficacity and life benefitfor patients, from the very beginning of the nanoproduct design, becomes crucial for theconstruction of the balance and should be apprehended as the key normative condition ofits development.