Recent Development of Photothermal Agents (PTAs) Based on Small Organic Molecular Dyes

Abstract

Photothermal therapy (PTT) has attracted great attention due to its non-invasive and effective cancer therapy. Various of photothermal agents (PTAs) were developed in the last decades including organic PTAs and inorganic PTAs. Organic PTAs based on small molecular dyes exhibited great potential in future clinical applications considering its good biocompatibility and easy modification or functionalization. In this review, we discussed the recent progress of organic PTAs based on small molecular dyes for enhanced PTT. We summarized the strategies to improve the absorption light penetration of PTAs based on small molecular dyes in tumors, methods to enhance the photothermal conversion efficiency, how to optimize the PTAs delivery into deep tumor tissues, and how to resist photobleaching under repeated laser irradiation. We hope this review could arise the interest of the researchers into the field of PTAs based on small molecular dyes and fabricate a next-generation PTAs for non-invasive cancer therapy.