Nanomedicine-Enabled Sonomechanical, Sonopiezoelectric, Sonodynamic, and Sonothermal Therapy

Abstract

Nanomedicine-enabled/augmented ultrasound (US) medicine is a unique area of interdisciplinary research that focuses on designing and engineering functional nanosystems to address the challenging issues in US-based biomedicine, overcoming the shortcomings of traditional microbubbles and optimizing the design of contrast and sonosensitive agents. The single-faceted summary of available US-related therapies is still a significant drawback. Here, The proposal of a comprehensive review on the recent advances of sonosensitive nanomaterials in advancing four US-related biological applications and disease theranostics is aimed. In addition to the mostly explored nanomedicine-enabled/augmented sonodynamic therapy (SDT), the summary and discussion of other sono-therapies and progresses/achievements are relatively lacking, including sonomechanical therapy (SMT), sonopiezoelectric therapy (SPT), and sonothermal therapy (STT). The design concepts of the specific sono-therapies based on nanomedicines are initially introduced. Furthermore, the representative paradigms for nanomedicine-enabled/enhanced US therapies are elaborated according to therapeutic principles and diversity. This review provides an updated and comprehensive review of the field of nanoultrasonic biomedicine, and comprehensively discusses the progress of versatile ultrasonic disease treatments. Finally, the deep discussion on the facing challenges and prospects is expected to promote the emergence and establishment of a new branch of US biomedicine through the rational combination of nanomedicine and US clinical biomedicine.

Keywords: nanomedicine; sonodynamic therapy; sonomechanical therapy; sonopiezoelectric therapy; sonothermal therapy.