Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Magnetic Hyperthermia Applications

Abstract

Over the years, magnetic hyperthermia has attracted a lot of attention and has proved itself as an effective alternative treatment to the traditional anticancer therapies including surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The more established oncological strategies that are available today to cure malignant tumours lack specificity, pose a risk of recurrence of the disease and suffer from concerns like severe side effects. Magnetic hyperthermia, on the other hand, is thought to reduce the problems associated with the conventional therapies and can be used to provide targeted drug delivery. The treatment is based on the mechanism that magnetic nanoparticles, when exposed to a varying magnetic field, generate heat due to magnetic hysteresis loss, thus generating great interest in superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs). SPIONs loaded with anticancer drug(s) can be targeted specifically to the cancer cells by applying an external magnetic field, which can then release the drug to the tumour cell by inducing local hyperthermia. Thus, hyperthermia treatment has the ability to destroy specifically the cancer cells while sparing the normal cells. This chapter highlights the methods of synthesis and fabrication of SPIONs for their potential in hyperthermia cancer therapy.