Abstract

Conventional cancer therapy often fails for an insufficient therapeutic outcome, tumor heterogeneity, and drug resistance. The past decade has witnessed that combination therapies using near-infrared (NIR) light-mediated photothermal therapy (PTT) with its great capacity of heat ablation in tumor tissue enhanced the efficacy of radiotherapy (RT) and reduced radiotoxic effects on normal tissue. Metallic-nanoplatforms, such as transition metal dichalcogenides, gold, copper and, platinum nanoparticles have attracted lots of attention in nano biomedicine. Because of their desired properties such as tunable surface plasmon resonance (SPR), high plasmonic photothermal activity, and high-Z number with stronger photoelectric effects could serve as photosensitizers, and radiosensitizers to improve the efficacy of PTT and RT. Dual radiation of laser light and X-ray into metallic-nanoplatforms considerably improved the cancer treatment via reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Metallic-nanoplatforms can act as a dual absorber of laser light and X-ray, a common sensitizer, for treatment of cancer. Therefore, in this review, we tried to summarize the developing metallic-nanoplatforms in PTT, RT, and combination therapy. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.