This short review (with 72 refs.) summarizes the state of the art in fluorometric methods for targeted imaging of cancer cells and tumor tissues in order to differentiate between normal cells and cancer cells. Following an introduction into the field and after presenting an overview on the most commonly used carbon dots and graphene quantum dots, we describe methods based on peptide based targeting, aptamer based targeting, antibody based targeting, and ligand-based targeting. A concluding section summarizes the current state and challenges, and discusses future perspectives.
