Overview of the application of inorganic nanomaterials in cancer photothermal therapy

• Autor(a) principal: Fernandes, Natanael
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Rodrigues, Ana Carolina Félix, Moreira, André F., Correia, I.J.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/10284
• topic: Cancer photothermal therapy

Cancer photothermal therapy (PTT) has captured the attention of researchers worldwide due to its localized and trigger-activated therapeutic effect. In this field, nanomaterials capable of converting the energy of the irradiation light into heat have been showing promising results in several pre-clinical and clinical assays. Such a therapeutic modality takes advantage of the innate capacity of nanomaterials to accumulate in the tumor tissue and their capacity to interact with NIR laser irradiation to exert a therapeutic effect. Therefore, several nanostructures composed of different materials and organizations for mediating a photothermal effect have been developed. In this review, the most common inorganic nanomaterials, such as gold, carbon-based materials, tungsten, copper, molybdenum, and iron oxide, which have been explored for mediating a tumor-localized photothermal effect, are summarized. Moreover, the physicochemical parameters of nanoparticles that influence the PTT effectiveness are discussed and the recent clinical advances involving inorganic nanomaterial-mediated cancer photothermal therapy are also presented.