Magnetic–Luminescent Nanocomposites for Cancer Hyperthermia Therapy

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death and the incidence is increasing year by year. This disease has also affected the emotional health as well as the economic conditions of the patients and family. The medical fraternity and researchers have been working on various approaches to find a cure or early detection of this disease to reduce the fatality rate and increase the survival rate. Several methods of treatment such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgical removal of tumors, and conventional hyperthermia have been used. In the last two decades, a new method of treatment was pursued by researches which harnesses the magnetic properties of nanoscale iron oxide particles and their ability to generate heat in response to alternating magnetic field. The concept was designed for intratumoral killing of cancerous tissues at the diseased site by administration of magnetic nanoparticles and subsequent activation by a magnetic field. This new method of cancer therapy was coined as magnetic fluid hyperthermia. Several phase II/III clinical trials were reported which shows the effectiveness of the methods using magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. It was also emphasized that this new method is less invasive and can be used as an alternative or additional approach to radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Recently, several researchers have been discovering the potentials of integration of magnetic nanoparticles and luminescent components for their application in cancer diagnosis and therapy. This chapter highlighted the significant features of the iron oxide nanoparticles along with optimization of the fundamental parameters for efficient heat generation, tuning magnetism, and recent works on multimodal integration of magnetic–luminescent nanocomposites, especially for magnetic fluid hyperthermia therapy of cancers.