Nanoparticles Enhanced Hyperthermia - Intracellular Delivery: Fundamentals and Applications - page 577

The feasibility of Fe-filled CNT for hyperthermia has also been demonstrated.
In addition to Fe, Fe 3 O 4 conjugated CNT was found to experience hyperthermia
heating under alternating electromagnetic field (Shi et al. 2009 ). Krupskaya
et al. observed a different magnetic response of Fe-CNT powder compared to
Fe-CNT dispersed in aqueous solution. Ferromagnetic Fe-CNT in powder does
not show any hysteresis when being dispersed in liquid (Krupskaya et al. 2009 ).
In addition, other MNPs (Ni, Co) coated by carbon have also been produced by
high pressure chemical vapour deposition (Tang et al. 2009 ; El-Gendy et al. 2009 ;
Liu et al. 2004 ).
Besides, the carbon structures are also measured to understand the magnetic
properties (Dumé 2004 ). They are widely believed to have ferromagnetic properties,
but the effects are so weak that physicists are not sure if the magnetism is due to
tiny amounts of iron-rich impurities, or if it is an intrinsic property of the carbon.
In 2002 Coey's group proposed that ferromagnetic nanocrystals in the sample
induced a magnetic moment in the carbon via proximity effects (Dumé 2004 ).

2.3 Latest Progress in Clinical Trials

There are many preclinical researches in vitro and in vivo using animal models for
the application of magnetic nano-hyperthermia. However, only several groups have
carried out the clinical tests and the tumors refer to prostate cancer, melanoma,
glioblastoma and so on. The first treatment system for patients has been developed
at the Charité- Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Gneveckow et al. 2004 ). Table 2
summarizes some of these studies. The MNP used in their test is magnetic fluid
MFLAS (MagForce Nanotechnologies AG, Berlin, Germany) which consists of
aminosilane coated SPM iron oxide nanoparticles (core diameter: 15 nm) dispersed
in water, with an iron concentration of 112 mg/mL. These clinical tests proved
the potential of magnetic hyperthermia, and many patients prolonged their survival
time although they are dead of disease.

3 Nanoparticles Enhanced Photothermal Therapy

3.1 Basic Feature

PTT is a class of tumor hyperthermia which converts optical energy into heat to
abate the tumor. LITT has been proven as an effective means in this area (Zhou
and Liu 2004 ). It mainly uses visible and NIR light to deliver heat. However,
due to limitation of tissue penetration of the band laser, LITT is only efficient for
small, localized tumor, or serves as adjuvant of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and
photodynamic therapy. One solution to address such issue is to add some optical