REVIEW PAPER Emerging Theranostic Gold Nanomaterials to Combat Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review Hamed Barabadi 1 • Hossein Vahidi 1 • Kaveh Damavandi Kamali 2 • Omid Hosseini 3 • Mohammad Ali Mahjoub 4 • Masoumeh Rashedi 5 • Fereshteh Jazayeri Shoushtari 6 • Muthupandian Saravanan 7 Received: 19 June 2019 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Lung cancer remains the significant cause of deaths in males and females worldwide and many attempts have been made for diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. Nanotechnology has emerged as a novel strategy to design smart nanostructure weapons to combat lung cancer. Recently, the biogenic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have attracted highlighted interest for lung cancer theranostics. The current systematic review served to evaluate the anticancer potential of biologically syn- thesized AuNPs against lung cancer cells through in vitro studies. We provided valuable information regarding the efficacy of biogenic AuNPs suggesting their potential for next generation of anticancer drugs. The articles were identified through international databases involving Cochrane, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, ProQuest, and Embase. Eighteen articles were found eligible to enter into the current study. Our findings represented that although some studies reported nontoxicity of biogenic AuNPs against lung cancer cells, most of the studies reported significant anticancer activity of these nanoparticles (NPs) against lung cancer cells. Although the in vitro studies provided preliminary evidence for lung anticancer potential of biogenic AuNPs, further in vivo investigations are required to confirm the efficacy of these NPs through animal models. Keywords Gold nanoparticles Á Biological synthesis Á Lung cancer Á Cancer nanomedicine & Hamed Barabadi barabadi@sbmu.ac.ir & Masoumeh Rashedi masirsh7668@gmail.com & Muthupandian Saravanan bioinfosaran@gmail.com; saravanan.muthupandian@mu.edu.et 1 Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Food and Drug Administration, Gorgan, Iran 3 Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 5 Student Research Committee, School of Medicine, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran 6 School of Pharmacy, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran 7 Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Division of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, 1871 Mekelle, Ethiopia 123 Journal of Cluster Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s10876-019-01650-4