The Advances of Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy

Cancer is a serious disease that threatens human health. Recent years, near-infrared(NIR) laser-induced photothermal ablation(PTA) therapy which can localize elimination of tumor cells without affiecting healthy tissues, provides a new idea for cancer therapy. To gain access to biocompatible and efficient photothermal coupling agents is the prerequisite for the development of the NIR laser-induced PTA. With the rapid development of nanotechnology, many metal nanostructures have been widely used in PTA as photothermal coupling agents due to their outstanding optical property. The semiconductor copper sulfide is a latest promising photothermal coupling agent and has gained great interest in the nanomedicine areas due to its low cost, easy preparation, low cytotoxicity and stable optical property. The latest advances on the applications of CuS NPs in photothermal ablation and imaging diagnosis for cancer are reviewed in this paper. Moreover, the main issues existing in the biological applications are discussed.