Cancer treatment using magnetic nanoparticles

Article By:

Teran, Francisco José IMDEA Nanosciencia (Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience), Campus Universitario de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.

del Puerto Morales, María Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Campus Universitario de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.

Villanueva, Ángeles IMDEA Nanosciencia (Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience) and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Universitario de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.

Camarero, Julio IMDEA Nanosciencia (Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience) and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Universitario de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.

Miranda, Rodolfo IMDEA Nanosciencia (Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience) and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Universitario de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.

Last reviewed:2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.YB130165

Patients suffering from any cancer will benefit from early diagnosis and more effective therapeutic modalities. The currently used cancer therapies lack selectivity to target malignant cells, leading to side effects responsible for prolonged and expensive patient recovery or tumor relapse. Thus, advanced drug delivery providing more effective and localized therapeutic modalities is required in order to minimize the harmful toxicity related to the high doses of chemotherapeutic drugs currently administrated. Moreover, it is well known that the efficiency of cancer treatments increases when combining different treatment modalities. In this context, nanomedicine appears as an emerging and multidisciplinary area of knowledge that aims to provide personalized and more efficient tools to detect and remove diseases such as cancer. One of the main challenges faced by nanomedicine is to deliver the cancer treatment at the right place, at the right dose, and at the right moment. In this sense, superpara-magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) appear to be suitable platforms to act as nanovectors, that is, carriers that selectively transfer infective agents into a targeted body or organ. Because of their small size (∼10 nm), SPION can easily enter into cells with typical sizes of ∼10 μm. SPION may simultaneously combine different magnetic, chemical, or biological functionalities for selective cancer cell targeting and removal. Thus, SPION have shown potential for such applications as contrast agents, advanced nanocarriers for selective drug delivery into targeted cells, and intracellular heat sources. Many efforts have been undertaken to functionalize SPION with anticancer agents or antibodies in order to inhibit basic cell functions and to selectively target tumors. At the same time, SPION dissipate magnetic energy into heat when exposed to alternating magnetic fields due to their superparamagnetic properties. This interesting SPION behavior makes it possible to launch localized thermal shock waves into cells, inducing cancer cell death by blocking the cell's DNA repair mechanisms. Thus, SPION would result in a minimally invasive, selective, and efficient therapeutic approach combining different modalities to reinforce the tumor elimination.

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