Multifunctional Hybrid Liposome as a Theranostic Platform for Magnetic Resonance Imaging Guided Photothermal Therapy

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is an emerging modality for cancer treatment owing to its localized treatment of tumors and easy combination with other therapeutic approaches. An imaging guided tumor ablation will facilitate the implementation of the treatment to boost efficiency. A type of multifunctional hybrid liposome is synthesized by loading indocyanine green (ICG) into a hybrid liposome based on a mixture of hybrid lipid and 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-diethylene triamine pentacetate acid-gadopentetate dimeglumine (DMPE-DTPA-Gd). The hybrid liposome exhibited high structure stability and narrow size distribution in aqueous media. According to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), hybrid liposome after tail vein injection accumulated effectively in subcutaneous CT-26 tumor of mice. Moreover, photothermal therapy is able to ablate tumor effectively under MR imaging guidance. Thus, the MRI visible PTT agent-loaded theranostic nanoplatform is promising for effective cancer treatment.