Alternative cancer treatments such as photothermal therapy
(PTT)
and magnetic hyperthermia (MHT) techniques have been studied to show
promising potential as supplementary modalities. However, such techniques
have their own limitations; for instance, highly concentrated intratumoral
injections of magnetic nanoparticles are required to compensate their
low specific loss power under safe and low magnetic field intensity
for the MHT, while the PTT has limitations in the treatment of deep-seated
tumors due to low light penetration. Here, the decoration of the multi-walled
carbon nanotube (MWCNT) surface by magnetic nanoparticles (≈8.5
nm) was achieved by a hydrothermal method and the development of MWCNT/Mn0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 (MZFC) hybrids
for magneto-photothermal dual-mode cancer therapy. The obtained specific
loss power of the MZFC hybrids is found to be at least 1 order of
magnitude higher, with improvement from ∼19 W/g to 225 W/g,
under the excitation of both an AMF with a magnetic field intensity
of 6.4 kA/m and a frequency of 300 kHz and a simultaneous NIR laser
of 0.5 W/cm2 irradiation. The synergistic utilization of
the photothermal and magnetic properties of MZFC effectively diminishes
the required magnetic field amplitude and NIR laser power density.
Our in vitro cell experiments confirmed that the thermal effects mediated
by the MZFC after endocytosis delivered enhanced cytotoxicity in the
presence of dual excitation of NIR laser and AMF. These findings indicate
that MZFC nanohybrids possess significant potential as targeted nanoheating
agents for hyperthermia applications.