Emerging Nanomaterials as Radio-Sensitizer in Radiotherapy

Radiotherapy has been involved in treating 50% of the cancer patients in the world and is based on the direct energy deposition into tumor tissues. The major constraint in radiotherapy is the adverse effect of deposited energy on the surrounded healthy tissues. The improved radiotherapeutic tactics involve the use of novel nanoparticles as radio-sensitizers. The nanoparticles, due to their high biocompatibility and optical properties, provide the enhanced localized damaging effect with the radiations targeted on the tumor site. There are different nanomaterials which offered enormous potential as radio-sensitizer and showed enhanced response with radiotherapy. In this chapter, we have discussed radio-sensitizing mechanisms and then different emerging nanomaterials being used as radio-sensitizer agents in radiotherapy.