Organic nanomaterials for near-infrared light-triggered photothermal/thermodynamic combination therapy

Photothermal therapy (PTT) has gained more and more attention in the field of cancer therapy owing to its outstanding efficacy. However, the overexpression of heat shock proteins (HSPs) within tumor cells upon heating can alleviate the damage of high temperature to cells, which significantly restrict the therapeutic efficiency of PTT. To achieve a better therapeutic efficacy, combining other kinds of therapeutic modalities such as chemotherapy and immunotherapy with PTT has been widely reported. However, most of these combination therapeutic systems may suffer from the issue of increased side effect. Recently, an oxygen-independent modality, thermodynamic therapy (TDT), has shown its great promise in combining with PTT for developing combination therapeutic modality. TDT utilizes carbon radicals to kill cancer cells upon heating, and is a PTT-synergized modality which can improve the efficacy of PTT without inducing additional side effect. In this review, we summarize recent advances in organic nanomaterials for photothermal/thermodynamic combination therapy of cancer. Organic nanomaterials with NIR-I or NIR-II light triggered PTT/TDT are sequentially introduced. At last, conclusion and future perspectives of this field are discussed.