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Zhengjun Li,1,* Chang Liu,1,* Zexi Di,2,* Guofeng Zhang,1 Sibo You,1 Siwei Chao,3 Yi Ren1 1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Shenyang Chest Hospital, Shenyang, 110044, People’s Republic of China; 2Central Hospital Affiliated to Shenyang Medical College, Shenyang Medical College, Shenyang, 110024, People’s Republic of China; 3Shenyang Medical College, Shenyang, 110034, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yi Ren, Email renyisyxk@126.comAbstract: Lung cancer (LC) remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally. Conventional therapeutic strategies, including surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, are often hampered by limitations such as poor tumor selectivity, low bioavailability, and severe systemic toxicity, which compromise treatment efficacy. Nanocarriers are colloidal formulations characterized by abundant porosity and unique physicochemical properties, such as tunable size, high specific surface area, and stimuli-responsiveness. Nanocarrier-based drug delivery systems (NDDSs) have emerged as a promising solution to enable targeted delivery, controlled drug release, and theranostics. This review discusses the advantages, limitations, and clinical translation of three major classes of nanodelivery systems for LC therapy: organic, inorganic, and inorganic–organic hybrid nanosystems. Organic systems are characterized by high biocompatibility and versatile drug-loading capacity, whereas inorganic counterparts provide distinctive optical or magnetic functionalities that enable imaging and synergistic therapy. Hybrid designs integrate both material classes to improve stability and therapeutic performance. Future research is expected to focus on optimizing inhalation strategies for deep lung deposition, developing multi-targeted biomimetic carriers, advancing theranostic platforms, and employing computational tools to accelerate nanocarrier design and clinical translation. This review aims to offer critical perspectives on the development and clinical implementation of nanomedicines for LC.Keywords: lung cancer, NDDSs, organic nano-delivery systems, inorganic nano-delivery systems, inorganic-organic hybrid nano-delivery systems, targeted therapy, theranostics, clinical translation