Temperature-feedback upconversion nanocomposite for accurate photothermal therapy at facile temperature

Abstract

Photothermal therapy (PTT) at present, following the temperature definition for conventional thermal therapy, usually keeps the temperature of lesions at 42–45 °C or even higher. Such high temperature kills cancer cells but also increases the damage of normal tissues near lesions through heat conduction and thus brings about more side effects and inhibits therapeutic accuracy. Here we use temperature-feedback upconversion nanoparticle combined with photothermal material for real-time monitoring of microscopic temperature in PTT. We observe that microscopic temperature of photothermal material upon illumination is high enough to kill cancer cells when the temperature of lesions is still low enough to prevent damage to normal tissue. On the basis of the above phenomenon, we further realize high spatial resolution photothermal ablation of labelled tumour with minimal damage to normal tissues in vivo. Our work points to a method for investigating photothermal properties at nanoscale, and for the development of new generation of PTT strategy.

Black‐Phosphorus‐Incorporated Hydrogel as a Sprayable and Biodegradable Photothermal Platform for Postsurgical Treatment of Cancer

“…Compared to other conventional therapeutic techniques, PTT boasts many merits such as the simplicity, minimal invasiveness, low incidence of complications, as well as the high spatial and temporal precision of NIR light 8, 9, 10, 11. Various types of nanoagents have been explored to attain better PTT performance12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and in the treatment, intravenous injection of the nanoagents (to mice, for example) is followed by high‐power NIR laser irradiation for ablation 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. Despite recent progress, clinical adoption of PTT still faces several hurdles.…”

Recent Advances on Inorganic Nanoparticle-Based Cancer Therapeutic Agents

“…Real-time microscopic temperature monitoring during photothermal therapy was achieved. With this system, photothermal ablation of tumor was achieved in high spatial resolution with minimal damage to normal tissue in vivo [36]. …”

High resolution fluorescence bio-imaging upconversion nanoparticles in insects

“…This change could be attributed to the upconversion nanoparticles' temperature sensitivity, where UCNPs have been used in optical temperature sensing [28,29]. Especially, temperature in biological sample can be measured by calculating the ratio of (520 nm and 550 nm emission peaks) of UCNPs doped with erbium and using Boltzmann distribution [30]. UCNPs can be used to accomplish fast and cheap optical bio-imaging whose absolute accuracy can be directly validated with x-ray imaging when desired.…”