Biomedical Applications of Inorganic Materials by Gareth R Williams;

Author:Gareth R Williams; [Williams, Gareth R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788019309
Publisher: Ingram Publisher Services UK
Published: 2021-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Diagnostic and Theranostic Applications of Inorganic Materials

Jianrong Wu, Yanyan Zhang and Li-Min Zhu*

College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, P.R. China

*Email: [email protected]

4.1 Introduction

Recently, theranostics, the combination of therapy and diagnosis, has become a very widely studied research area. It combines a therapeutic and diagnostic element in a single formulation, with the goal of simultaneously treating a disease and monitoring its progress. This should enable more effective treatment, because, for instance, the dose can be adjusted in real time in response to knowledge of how the disease has progressed. Theranostics have been particularly widely explored in cancer research. Rapid development of nanobiotechnology has led to the emergence of many theranostic strategies for combating tumours and various other pathological abnormalities.1–3

Continuing progress in nanomedicine depends on advances in materials chemistry allowing scientists to fabricate well-defined nanosystems with controllable structures, compositions, morphologies, physicochemical properties, and biological effects.2,4 Such integration between materials chemistry and medicine will lead to the development of nanomedicines with diverse functions for theranostics.5 As far as cancer treatment is concerned, it is hoped that imaging would not only offer information regarding the exact tumour location, size, shape, and its relationship with surrounding tissues, but also enable real-time monitoring of therapeutic agents. This could include, for instance, their release or activation in the tumour. The in situ acquisition of diagnostic imaging during treatment can allow better treatment planning and understanding of therapeutic responses.6 Such imaging-guided therapy may be particularly promising in the development of new generations of cancer-treatment strategies in which therapy is induced by external physical stimuli. In addition, with well-designed and engineered nanomaterials, it is possible to combine a number of different therapeutic or diagnostic functions within a single nanoplatform. This can allow combination therapy with synergistic therapeutic outcomes, for instance by reversing drug resistance and/or achieving high efficacy by precisely targeting an active ingredient.7

As is discussed in Chapter 2, a wide range of inorganic materials have been developed to give improved therapeutic outcomes. Various imaging techniques including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) have been developed for clinical applications, and these are discussed in detail in Chapter 3.8,9 While many imaging probes for each specific imaging modality have been developed, there is less work to develop nanoprobes that can be used for multiple imaging modalities, delivering the benefits of hybrid imaging techniques (see Section 3.4.2). In addition to imaging, there also exists another aspect of diagnosis: the detection and quantification of biomarkers for particular conditions. Inorganic materials also have great potential here.

The objective of this chapter is to review the recent progress in biomedical applications of inorganic nanoparticles as agents for diagnosis and theranostics. We will build on the material already introduced in Chapter 3, describing additional materials that find application in medical diagnosis and biomarker detection, and discussing in detail concepts around theranostic formulations.

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