Magneto-chemotherapy combines magnetic nanoparticles with chemotherapeutic drugs to improve the delivery of the drugs to cancer cells and make the therapy optimally effective. Heating the cancerous cells at the same time provides an advantage, as hyperthermia treatment at 40–45 °C kills cancer cells.

Nanasaheb Thorat, University of Limerick, Ireland, Zeid Abdullah Alothman, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Kevin Wu, National Taiwan University, Taipei, and colleagues have used a controlled synthesis with diethylene glycol as both solvent and reducing agent in the presence of ethanolamine to prepare highly magnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles doped with gadolinium (GdIO NPs). These nanoparticles can generate just the right amount of heat for simultaneous thermal treatment of cancer cells in response to an applied external magnetic field.

The researchers demonstrated that GdIO NPs loaded with the anticancer drug doxorubicin have negligible toxicity and hemolytic activity, as well as excellent biocompatibility. In comparison with hyperthermia alone or bare iron oxide nanoparticles, the Gd-doped nanoparticles kill cancer cells more effectively. They also are excellent contrast agents for targeted drug delivery.

• Superparamagnetic Gadolinium Ferrite Nanoparticles with Controllable Curie Temperature – Cancer Theranostics for MR-Imaging-Guided Magneto-Chemotherapy,
  Nanasaheb D. Thorat, Ragvendra Bohara, Syed A. M. Tofail, Zeid Abdullah Alothman, Muhammad J. A. Shiddiky, Md Shahriar Hossain, Yusuke Yamauchi, Kevin C.-W. Wu,
  Eur J. Inorg. Chem. 2016.
  DOI: 10.1002/ejic.201600706

Also of Interest

• 10 Years Ago And Now: Yusuke Yamauchi,
  Chemistry – An Asian Journal,
  ChemViews Mag. 2014.
  DOI: 10.1002/chemv.201400058
  Chemistry – An Asian Journal speaks with Yusuke Yamauchi about 10 years ago and now