Optical – Magnetic probe for evaluating cancer therapy

Abstract

• Nanoprobe can establish a reliable relationship of signal with therapeutic efficacy. • Optical–magnetic probe can improve the application of imaging for evaluating therapy. • The real-time feedback of therapeutic responses can contribute to tailored therapy. With the rapid progress of functional nanomaterials, many non-invasive and high efficient methods for cancer diagnosis and therapy have been developed to reduce cancer mortality. However, even a standard cancer treatment would cause different responses due to the individual patient variation. In order to achieve a personalized treatment and accurate evaluation of therapy, the strategy of evaluating therapy by utilizing imaging probes to accurately reflect the progress and effectiveness for tumor therapy in real time is highly desirable. Considering the requirement of safety and real-time quantification, optical imaging and magnetic imaging can accurately evaluate the changes of tumor microenvironment or therapeutic response at tumor site with fewer side effects. In this review, we focus on the current applications of optical imaging and magnetic imaging probe for evaluating cancer therapy, so as to realize the “tailored therapy”. In addition, we briefly discuss the future developments and challenges for real application.