Recent advances in magnetic fluid hyperthermia for cancer therapy
Introduction
Cancer is a serious health issue in the world owing to a large number of cancer-related human deaths (8.8 million in 2015 worldwide) [1,2]. This is currently responsible for most of the deaths in the United States and Europe after heart disease as well as in the world after heart and infectious diseases [1,2]. Cancer rapidly spread to other parts of the human body because of uncontrolled growth of tumor cells, as long as their aptitude to invasion of adjacent tissue, metastasis, and immortality [3]. Thus, the diagnosis of cancer at an early stage is also essential from the current perspective of cancer therapy. For this purpose, several sensitive and selective bioassays including immunoassays, polymerase chain reaction, and fluorescence in situ hybridization, along with imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, fluorescence imaging, computed tomography, and ultrasound imaging have been well developed [[4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]]. At present, conventional approaches in use for cancer treatment include the removal of the tumor via surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of them. However, the toxicity to surrounding healthy cells, drug resistance of cancers, ineffectiveness against metastatic disease, difficulty in overcoming the biological barriers, and tumor relapse have limited the efficacy of common therapies [[12], [13], [14]]. Therefore, the development of new advanced techniques to replace or partner conventional treatments is strongly demanded. Nowadays, various new techniques based on nanomaterials that exhibit reduced side effects, including photothermal therapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, magnetic hyperthermia among others, have been developed in the laboratory and few of them are now under clinical investigation [11,[15], [16], [17], [18], [19]].
Magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) is a favorable non-invasive technique for cancer therapy and has several advantages compared to traditional hyperthermia therapy [18,19]. This therapy involves selective administration of magnetic nanoparticles as a mediator of heat into the tumor followed by exposure of this tumor to an external alternating magnetic field (AMF). As a result, the temperature inside the tumor increases due to the generation of heat from internalized magnetic nanoparticles under high frequency AMF leading to magnetic energy dissipation for single-domain particles caused by internal Néel fluctuations of the nanoparticle magnetic moment and external Brownian fluctuations. Increased temperature kills cancer cells through various direct mechanisms, including denaturation, folding, and aggregation of proteins, apoptosis, necrosis and coagulation, and indirect response mediated by activation of the immune system promoted by overexpression of heat shock proteins [[18], [19], [20], [21]]. Magnetic hyperthermia has several advantages including higher penetration ability of magnetic field in the tissues and enhanced accumulation of magnetic nanoparticles in the tumor via magnetic targeting strategy for cancer treatment compared to NIR laser-based hyperthermia [15]. In addition, magnetic fluid hyperthermia based multimodal cancer therapies especially in combination with chemotherapy is more effective for cancer treatment due to their synergistic effects [[22], [23], [24]]. The efficiency of magnetic hyperthermia therapy is mainly determined by the specific absorption rate (SAR) value of heat mediator that further depends on the applied magnetic field, magnetic properties of nanoparticles, and the properties of the biological medium [18,19]. In general, the heating power of magnetic nanoparticles is highly sensitive to the nanocrystal size, the material composition, and the solvent properties [25]. In the last few decades, magnetic nanoparticles have been widely used for several biological applications including bioimaging and therapy because of their size-dependent magnetic properties and high biocompatibility [[26], [27], [28]]. Therefore, various methods have been well established for the synthesis of high-quality magnetic nanoparticles and also for their surface modifications to allow their utilization in a biological environment.
In this review, we begin with the basic principles of magnetism and magnetic heating in order to offer an insight into the essential elements needed for the design of magnetic nanoparticles useful for efficient hyperthermia agents for cancer therapy. We also provide a brief description of the synthetic methods and surface chemistry for the synthesis of water-soluble magnetic nanoparticles to develop an excellent heat mediator with high heating capacity. Finally, we summarize the recent studies (since 2013) on magnetic hyperthermia therapy as well as its combined effects with magnetothermal responsive released anticancer drug molecules for cancer treatment.
Section snippets
Magnetic fluid hyperthermia
Magnetic fluid hyperthermia involves the conversion of heat from magnetic nanoparticles via magnetic energy loss in the presence of an external AMF [18,19]. The produced heat is sufficient to kill the cancer cells and subsequently to destroy the tumor. Magnetic particles based hyperthermia was first introduced by Gilchrist et al. and its first implementation in the biological system was performed in 1979 [29,30]. In the last few decades, various pre-clinical and clinical research studies have
Basics of magnetism
The understanding of fundamental concepts about magnetic nanoparticles as well as the effect of physical and chemical properties on their magnetic properties is crucial to design optimal heat nanomediators. Magnetic nanomaterials are classified into several categories depending on their magnetic behavior, including for example diamagnetic, paramagnetic, ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic based on the arrangement of magnetic dipoles in absence or presence of an external magnetic
Magnetic hyperthermia therapy
In last decades, several pre-clinical magnetic hyperthermia studies have been performed to improve the cancer treatment aiming at minimizing the side effects on healthy cells. This section describes the advances in magnetic fluid hyperthermia for cancer therapy relative to the last five years (Table 1).
Majeed et al. synthesized silica-coated iron oxide (Fe3O4-SiO2) nanoparticles with tunable shell thickness [99]. The SAR value of these magnetic nanoparticles was enhanced after coating compared
Conclusions
Magnetic nanoparticles-based hyperthermia therapy is increasingly estimated to play an important role in cancer treatment. The combined effects of hyperthermia therapy with chemotherapy are more effective in the treatment and management of cancer compared to either hyperthermia therapy or chemotherapy alone. Moreover, magnetic resonance imaging of tumor using heat nanomediators as a contrast agent is also helpful to monitor the progress of treatment. Though the increased temperature of the
Acknowledgements
This work was partly supported by the Fondazione per la Ricerca Biomedica (FRRB) and by Academic Funding Unimib.
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