Chemo-photothermal therapy and gold nanorod

What is it about?

Photothermal therapy, applying heat to selectively eradicate cancer cells, is a type of minimally-invasive and widely received treatment method in cancer therapy.This methodology involves strong optical absorption in the near-infrared region (NIR) and conversion of absorbed light into local heating. In particular, there is less photo damage to the surrounding tissue and higher penetration depth for photothermal hyperthermia mediated in the NIR region due to minimal absorption of light by hemoglobin and water NIR absorbing nanocrystals such as gold nanorods have attracted extensive attention in recent decades because these nanocrystals can strongly absorb photon energy and convert it into heat to kill cancer cells selectively However single photothermal therapy can suffer from incomplete tumor killing owing to insufficient heat delivery in target regions without harming native tissue. To overcome the limitation of these monotherapies and to maximize tumor killing, synergistic cancer treatment can be accomplished by integrating NIR absorbing agents with anti-cancer drugs for combined chemo-photothermal therapy.

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Why is it important?

The combination of photothermal therapy and chemotherapy, when carefully planned, has been shown to be an effective cancer treatment option clinically and preclinically.