Multifunctional Mesoporous/Hollow Silica for Cancer Nanotheranostics

Recently, mesoporous/hollow silica (MHSN) has attracted considerable attention for their biomedical application. With their special structure and properties of high surface, uniformly sized, excellent biocompatibility, easily surface functionalization, ease of large-scale synthesis and low cost, MHSN-based nanoparticles show great advantages in drug delivery and imaging system. In this chapter, we discuss the recent research progress of MHSN-based theranostic applications. Firstly, the development of MHSN-based fluorescent optical imaging and medical imaging is introduced. Then, we overview the building up and application of MHSN-based imaging-guided therapies, as well as the understanding of the functional modalities which may affect the transport, delivery, and release of the MHSN loading cargos. In the end, the potential limitation and challenge related to the successful applications of multifunctional MHSN nanomaterials in clinical are concluded. We anticipate that the MHSN-based nanocomposites will open a new era of inorganic nanomaterials for the effective personalized cancer therapy in clinical in the near future.