Whither Magnetic Hyperthermia? A Tentative Roadmap

Abstract

The scientific community has made great efforts in advancing magnetic hyperthermia for the last two decades after going through a sizeable research lapse from its establishment. All the progress made in various topics ranging from nanoparticle synthesis to biocompatibilization and in vivo testing have been seeking to push the forefront towards some new clinical trials. As many, they did not go at the expected pace. Today, fruitful international cooperation and the wisdom gain after a careful analysis of the lessons learned from seminal clinical trials allow us to have a future with better guarantees for a more definitive takeoff of this genuine nanotherapy against cancer. Deliberately giving prominence to a number of critical aspects, this opinion review offers a blend of state-of-the-art hints and glimpses into the future of the therapy, considering the expected evolution of science and technology behind magnetic hyperthermia. ; This work was supported by the NoCanTher project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 685795. The authors acknowledge support from the COST Association through the COST actions "RADIOMAG" (TD1402) and "MyWAVE" (CA17115). D.O., A.S.-O. and I.R.-R. acknowledge financial support from the Community of Madrid under Contracts No. PEJD-2017-PRE/IND-3663 and PEJ-2018-AI/IND-11069, from the Spanish Ministry of Science through the Ramon y Cajal grant RYC2018-025253-I and Research Networks RED2018-102626-T, as well as the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the grants MAT2017-85617-R, MAT2017-88148R and the "Severo Ochoa" Program for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2016-0686). M.B. and N.T.K.T. would like to thank EPSRC for funding (grant EP/K038656/1 and EP/M015157/1) and AOARD (FA2386-171-4042) award. This work was additionally supported by the EMPIR program co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, grant no. 16NRM04 "MagNaStand". The work was further supported by the DFG grant CRC "Matrix in Vision" (SFB 1340/1 2018, no 372486779, project A02).