Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles—Current and Prospective Medical Applications

Abstract

The recent, fast development of nanotechnology is reflected in the medical sciences. Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (SPIONs) are an excellent example. Thanks to their superparamagnetic properties, SPIONs have found application in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and magnetic hyperthermia. Unlike bulk iron, SPIONs do not have remnant magnetization in the absence of the external magnetic field; therefore, a precise remote control over their action is possible. This makes them also useful as a component of the advanced drug delivery systems. Due to their easy synthesis, biocompatibility, multifunctionality, and possibility of further surface modification with various chemical agents, SPIONs could support many fields of medicine. SPIONs have also some disadvantages, such as their high uptake by macrophages. Nevertheless, based on the ongoing studies, they seem to be very promising in oncological therapy (especially in the brain, breast, prostate, and pancreatic tumors). The main goal of our paper is, therefore, to present the basic properties of SPIONs, to discuss their current role in medicine, and to review their applications in order to inspire future developments of new, improved SPION systems.

Pharmaceutical Applications of Iron-Oxide Magnetic Nanoparticles

“…Physical Pulsed laser ablation [6,[39][40][41]] Pyrolysis [6] Chemical Co-precipitation [3,6,16,[36][37][38][40][41][42][43]] Microemulsion [6,37,44] Hydrothermal and solvothermal syntheses [1,3,6,38] Thermal decomposition [6,38] Sol-gel synthesis [3,16,17,21,32,37,38,[43][44][45][46]] Sonochemical [43,47] Microwave-assisted synthesis [6,48] Biological Biosynthesis [6,49] The synthesis of these nanoparticles into formulations should also be considered. These methodologies aim for the production of IOMNPs with improved characteristics of stability, biocompatibility, high dispersibility, suitable shape, and controlled size [1,3,6,17].…”

“…Moreover, they were investigated as carriers for active agents for drug targeting [6]. In the last few decades, several studies showed the development of preparations containing IOMNP to be used for in vitro separation, tissue repair, cellular therapy, magnetic separation, magnetic resonance imaging, as spoilers for magnetic resonance spectroscopy, in drug delivery, hyperthermia, sensors for metabolites, and other biomolecules [6,11,12,16,18,30,[32][33][34][35].…”

Application of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases With Emphasis on Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Besides, colloidal IONPs such as ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) and superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) have already been used as MRI CAs in targeting drug delivery (Busquets et al, 2014;Dulińska-Litewka et al, 2019). Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), with the iron oxide core and magnetic coating, have fundamental features such as high saturation magnetic moment, relatively stable chemical properties, and minimized potential toxicity (Busquets et al, 2014;Dulińska-Litewka et al, 2019). They can improve the MRI sensitivity by serving as in vivo or in vitro CAs and thus have potential biomedical applications for MRI CAs (Busquets et al, 2014;Dulińska-Litewka et al, 2019).…”

“…Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), with the iron oxide core and magnetic coating, have fundamental features such as high saturation magnetic moment, relatively stable chemical properties, and minimized potential toxicity (Busquets et al, 2014;Dulińska-Litewka et al, 2019). They can improve the MRI sensitivity by serving as in vivo or in vitro CAs and thus have potential biomedical applications for MRI CAs (Busquets et al, 2014;Dulińska-Litewka et al, 2019). The commonly used MRI CAs are briefly summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Of all the drug delivery strategies, SPIONs comprising of maghemite (Fe 2 O 3 ) and magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) prove their advantage in targeted drug delivery systems (Anwar et al, 2014). The characteristics of both CAs and the delivery system make SPIONs the optimal choice for targeting drug delivery systems (Anwar et al, 2014;Dulińska-Litewka et al, 2019).…”