Magnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles via Intravenous Injection for Cancer Photothermal Therapy

Through intravenous injection for cancer-targeted photothermal therapy (PTT) have been widely reported in recent years. Compared to intratumoral injection, intravenous injection should have strict requirements on the properties of photothermal materials, such as size, surface changes, shape, and biocompatibility. The dose of photothermal materials for intravenous injection is much more than that for intratumoral injection, as most of the materials after intravenous injection are distributed in non-targeted organs. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles as photothermal materials can be intravenously injected into the body as these biomaterials exhibit good compatibility and biodegradability, along with the provision to tailor their size, surface, and shape. This chapter outlines the basic characteristics of nanoparticles’ enhanced permeability and retention effect in solid tumors. Further, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for tumor-targeted PTT based on passive targeting (without tumor-targeting ligands), active tumor targeting (with tumor-targeting ligands), and magnetic targeting and multimodal targeting were conferred in this chapter. Nanoparticles accumulating in the tumor through trans-endothelial pathways and how to improve the tumor-targeting efficiency of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were also discussed.