TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS Newer nanoparticles in hyperthermia treatment and thermometry R. Sharma Æ C. J. Chen Received: 2 August 2008 / Accepted: 22 October 2008 / Published online: 19 November 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Heating tumors by nanoparticles and resistance in hypoxic tumor cells to a high temper- ature is emerging as an effective tool in therapeutic oncology as nanomedicine tool. The art of imaging temperature in a tumor at various locations is emerging as the selective approach of hyperthermia to monitor temperature and treat the tumor. However, thermometry and tumor cell interaction with nano- particles may monitor and evaluate the tumor cell survival after exposure to high physiological temper- atures. The application of 10–100 nanometer sized nanoparticles in tumor hyperthermia has emerged as an effective monitoring tool as magnetic resonance (MR) thermal mapping. The temperature and nano- particle magnetic moment relationship is specific. Furthermore, there are two main issues that are unsolved as of yet. First issue is the relationship of tumor energy changes due to tumor magnetization; linear attenuation after magnetic field and X-ray exposure with tissue temperature increase. The sec- ond issue is the undefined behavior of the nanoparticle inside the tumor as diamagnetic or paramagnetic can be therapeutic and it depends on the tumor tissue temperature. In vivo imaging such as MR thermometry mapping of different hypoxic tumor locations solves these issues to some extent. The art of the nanoparticle-induced hyperthermia does have a great impact on public health as alternative thera- peutic oncology. Keywords Tumor  Oncology  Hypoxia  Hyperthermia  Nanoparticles  Thermal therapy  Nanomedicine  Cancer treatment Introduction Heating of organs and tissues in cancer treatment was first reported in the year 1968. The report described heating of the tissue and the destruction of cancer by thermal therapy and chemotherapy with later emphasis on radiation therapy (Harrison et al. 1969; Larach et al. 1994). Several technical reviews reference the tissue heating application to tumors (Sulliven et al. 1993; Seegenschmiedt et al. 1990; Mark and Hurwitz 1999; Wust et al. 2002; Mina- mimura et al. 2000). These studies paved the way to a rapid development in therapeutic applicator design and sophistication of hyperthermia equipment. The Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11051-008-9548-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. R. Sharma Center of Nanobioscience, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA R. Sharma (&)  C. J. Chen Center of Nanomagnetics and Biotechnology, Florida State University, 510 West Tennessee Street, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA e-mail: rksz2004@gmail.com 123 J Nanopart Res (2009) 11:671–689 DOI 10.1007/s11051-008-9548-z