Strategies for Cancer Treatment Based on Photonic Nanomedicine

Abstract

Traditional cancer treatments, such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, are still the most effective clinical practice options. However, these treatments may display moderate to severe side effects caused by their low temporal or spatial resolution. In this sense, photonic nanomedicine therapies have been arising as an alternative to traditional cancer treatments since they display more control of temporal and spatial resolution, thereby yielding fewer side effects. In this work, we reviewed the challenge of current cancer treatments, using the PubMed and Web of Science database, focusing on the advances of three prominent therapies approached by photonic nanomedicine: (i) photothermal therapy; (ii) photodynamic therapy; (iii) photoresponsive drug delivery systems. These photonic nanomedicines act on the cancer cells through different mechanisms, such as hyperthermic effect and delivery of chemotherapeutics and species that cause oxidative stress. Furthermore, we covered the recent advances in materials science applied in photonic nanomedicine, highlighting the main classes of materials used in each therapy, their applications in the context of cancer treatment, as well as their advantages, limitations, and future perspectives. Finally, although some photonic nanomedicines are undergoing clinical trials, their effectiveness in cancer treatment have already been highlighted by pre-clinical studies.

A Study on Improving the Efficacy of Nanoparticle-Based Photothermal Therapy: From Nanoscale to Micron Scale to Millimeter Scale

“…Because the process of scattering and interference is very complex and difficult to be expressed quantitatively, we do not consider the influence of scattering and interference in our model in order to simplify our model. Similar considerations have also been adopted in the literature [ 9 , 16 ], and they yielded results that match the experiments [ 11 , 18 ].…”

“…By comparing the temperature distribution obtained by the simplified method (Equation (5)) with that obtained by Equation (4), we find that the temperature distribution obtained by the two methods is almost identical outside cells and there is only about 0.1 °C difference inside cells (The comparison is shown in Figure 3). The temperature rise in photothermal therapy exceeds 10 °C [ 9 ], so the effect of the difference on temperature distribution inside cells can be negligible.…”

“…The principle is to inject the material with high photothermal conversion efficiency into the body and gather them near tumor tissue by targeted recognition technology. Under the irradiation of an external light source, the material converts light energy into heat energy, which causes the tissue temperature increase to kill the cancer cells [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Since light usually irradiates the entire top surface of the tumor in photothermal therapy, the method often leads to the uneven temperature distribution of tumor and overheating, which results in incomplete treatment of tumor and damage of healthy tissue.…”

Smart Nanotherapeutics and Lung Cancer

“…Promising outcomes in photoresponsive nanoformulations investigated in preclinical and clinical studies led to the first FDA-approved light-sensitive liposome NPs, known as Visudyne ® , in 2000 to treat disorders associated with the eye [102]. Photoresponsive nanotherapeutics act through two main mechanisms: photodynamic therapy (PDT), a local ROS generation in response to radiation with specific wavelengths that can lead to cell apoptosis or necrosis, and photothermal effect (PTT), light-triggered hyperthermia that can lead to liposomes or lipid-based micelles for facilitated drug release, increasing chemotherapeutics cytotoxicity, and also driving the cell to necrosis and apoptosis in higher temperatures [103].…”

The Nanosystems Involved in Treating Lung Cancer

“…Gold nanoshells were the very first such NIR absorbents used in PTT, with an evidence-based effectiveness. Developed in the mid-1990s as PEGylated silica-cored Au nanoshells, they later appeared in 2008 as absorbent agents for the AuroLase ® Therapy (Nanospectra Biosciences, Houston, TX, USA) [ 190 ]. The preclinical studies confirmed both the accumulation of these particles at the tumoral site and their effectiveness as light-to-heat conversion mediators.…”