Graphene Photothermal Materials in Oncology Therapy

Abstract

Cancer, as one of the major causes of death worldwide, poses a serious threat to human health. Although traditional treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are effective, they have limitations such as high side effects and high recurrence rates. Graphene-based photothermal materials have become a hotspot for tumour therapy research due to their unique properties. This paper aims to analyse the therapeutic mechanism of graphene photothermal materials. This paper concludes that under near-infrared light irradiation, graphene and its derivatives can be efficiently converted photothermally to kill cancer cells, and can also be used as carriers for drug loading, and photothermal drug release can be achieved synergistically. Technical bottlenecks include low photothermal efficiency (narrow absorption, energy loss), shallow tumour penetration (only 1-2 cm of near-infrared light), easy agglomeration of the material, and biosafety to be verified, and the solutions include composite of other materials to broaden the absorption, the development of NIR-II responsive materials, and surface modification to improve dispersion, etc. The material can be used alone for photothermal therapy to kill cancer cells under near-infrared light irradiation. The material can be used for photothermal therapy alone, or in combination with chemotherapy (e.g. GO-loaded adriamycin), photodynamic (e.g. rGO-AuNP to produce heat and reactive oxygen species), immunotherapy, and some materials (e.g. NPGQDs) have low toxicity and a good tumour suppression effect in animal models. This study provides a reference for related fields and helps clinical translation.