Research progress of multifunctional inorganic nanomaterials for tumor photothermal therapy

Malignant tumors pose a serious threat to human health. Surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are widely used in clinical treatment but suffer from limitations such as invasiveness, significant systemic toxicity, and the potential for inducing resistance. Photothermal therapy (PTT), as an emerging non-invasive technique, has garnered significant attention in tumor precision treatment due to its advantages of minimal invasiveness, precise targeting, and spatiotemporal controllability. A large number of inorganic nanomaterials have been developed as the core agents for PTT, significantly enhancing anti-tumor efficacy by improving photothermal conversion efficiency. More importantly, constructing multi-modal synergistic therapeutic strategies based on inorganic photothermal agents can effectively overcome the limitations of single-mode PTT and achieve complementary and synergistic therapeutic effects. This review systematically summarizes the innovative design and research progress of multifunctional inorganic photothermal nanomaterials and multi-mode synergistic therapy, aiming to provide theoretical guidance for the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic materials, as well as to offer insights into the future development of PTT.