A near infrared photothermal therapy hydrogel with high conversion efficiency for eliminating of breast cancer cells

In recent years, photothermal materials have attracted much attention in cancer research. In the present study, a new near infrared biocompatible photothermal therapeutic (PTT) agent, named BPD-BBTD was synthesized by the facile one-step Suzuki reaction. This agent has excellent proterties, such as high photothermal conversion efficiency (40 %), photothermal cycle stability, and even can withstand superacid and superalkali environments. More importantly, a new type of photo thermal gel BPD-BBTD-NPs@PDA-PAM hydrogels was synthesized. The hydrogels have not only excellent anti stretching, biocompatibility, exceedingly and adhesion, but also excellent photothermal transformation ability. The temperature of the hydrogels are up to 102 °C under 0.8 W cm−2 808 nm laser irradiation for 4 min, which is higher than most reported inorganic and organic PTT agents. In vitro experiments showed that BPD-BBTD-NPs@PDA-PAM hydrogels exhibited excellent photothermal killing ability for cancer cells under low power laser irradiation (0.3 W cm−2). This work can not only contribute to enrich the research of photothermal therapy, but also has potential usage in photothermal treatment of breast cancer.