ABSTRACT
Owing to their unique optical, magnetic, and thermal properties, nanomaterials (NMs) have been widely explored in radiation diagnosis and therapy. For instance, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are used for Raman and photoacoustic imaging and thermal therapy (Chakravarty et al. 2008; De La Zerda et al. 2008; Liu et al. 2007); magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and thermal therapy (Duguet et al. 2006); and gold nanoparticles (GNPs) for x-ray computed tomography (CT) contrast agents (Popovtzer et al. 2008). However, with recent nanomedicine applications, there is a growing concern about the toxic eects generated by NMs (Nel et al. 2006). Because these theranostic nanoparticles will be inevitably injected into the human body when they are used in clinics, the related toxicity issues must be addressed before any human use. e toxicity of NMs in living cells and mammals has been frequently reported; the results of preliminary studies reveal that multiple biological mechanisms may be involved (Deng et al. 2011; Manna et al. 2005; Mu et al. 2009b). However, our knowledge about the toxicologic mechanism of NMs and the correlation between their physicochemical properties and toxicity is very limited.
