The Use of Silica Microparticles to Improve the Efficiency of Optical Hyperthermia (OH).

Although optical hyperthermia could be a promising anticancer therapy, the need for high concentrations of light-absorbing metal nanoparticles and high-intensity lasers, or large exposure times, could discourage its use due to the toxicity that they could imply. In this article, we explore a possible role of silica microparticles that have high biocompatibility and that scatter light, when used in combination with conventional nanoparticles, to reduce those high concentrations of particles and/or those intense laser beams, in order to improve the biocompatibility of the overall procedure. Our underlying hypothesis is that the scattering of light caused by the microparticles would increase the optical density of the irradiated volume due to the production of multiple reflections of the incident light: the nanoparticles present in the same volume would absorb more energy from the laser than without the presence of silica particles, resulting either in higher heat production or in the need for less laser power or absorbing particles for the same required temperature rise.

Slowdown intracranial glioma progression by optical hyperthermia therapy: study on a CT-2A mouse astrocytoma model.

Metallic nanorods are promising agents for a wide range of biomedical applications. We report an optical hyperthermia method capable of inducing slowdown tumor progression of an experimental in vivo CT-2A glioblastoma tumor. The tumor model used in this research is based on the transplantation of mouse astrocytoma CT-2A cells in the striatum of mice by intracranial stereotaxic surgery.

Influence of medium viscosity and intracellular environment on the magnetization of superparamagnetic nanoparticles in silk fibroin solutions and 3T3 mouse fibroblast cell cultures.

Biomedical applications based on the magnetic properties of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) may be altered by the mechanical attachment or cellular uptake of these nanoparticles. When nanoparticles interact with living cells, they are captured and internalized into intracellular compartments. Consequently, the magnetic behavior of the nanoparticles is modified.