Recent advances in iron oxide nano-materials for tumor treatment

The fundamental research on iron oxide nano-materials has been going on for a whole century, people are increasingly feeling the huge potential value of iron oxide nano-materials in medical area. Up to now, iron oxide nanomaterial still is the only one inorganic nanoparticles which have been approved by Food and Drug Administration of America (FDA) for clinical drug application, and have been played a great role in MRI medical or iron-supplementary medicine. Recently, with the development of chemistry technology, the application of chemical modification strategy become important for regulating the iron oxide nanoparticles of size, morphology, elements and surface functionalization, making the properties better and improving biocompatibility of iron oxide nano-materials widely used in medicine field, and especially in the tumor treatment. Interestingly, the biological effects of iron oxide nano-materials are closely relevant to their chemical composition, morphology, and surface performance, such as the well-known magnetothermal effect and enzyme effect. The synthesis method of iron oxide nano-materials is the key factor to its special chemical properties, and many available approaches have been developed. For example, thermal decomposition has been realized as an outstanding method and can obtain iron oxide nanocrystals with better morphology. However, coprecipitation method is more suitable for the clinic use. Here, the synthesis methods of iron oxide nanomaterials and the medical applications for tumor treatment will be discussed in details. The iron oxide nano-materilas own functional value has been constantly exploring and expanding from the application of contrast agent and iron supplement in the past to the wide study of enzyme activity, the recent functional drug design and immune activation. For the future development of iron oxide materilas, it not only need to meet the basic requirements of biomedical materials, but also overcome the challenges in the complex pathological environment of tumors. Different tumor types have different pathological characteristics, and the level of heterogeneity and malignancy will affect the therapeutic effect of iron oxide nanoparticles. Firstly, we could investigate the synthesis of medical magnetic nanomaterials with high performance and expand their clinical applicability to solve the biological problems of tumors and make them more specific and targeted. A new generation of intelligent tumor drugs preparation based on iron oxide nanoparticles with traditional clinical biomaterials should be explored deeply. Lastly, novel characterization techniques and strategies for construction and modification should be developed. We believed the iron oxide nano-materials will hold a great promise in improving national health.