A Roadmap to the Standardization of In Vivo Magnetic Hyperthermia

Abstract

Despite the fact that magnetic hyperthermia seems to be a promising approach in cancer treatment, researchers working in this field have to face several drawbacks, because of the lack of standardization in the treatment conditions and the difficulties in measuring the biological effects. This chapter revises recent bibliography about in vivo preclinical studies and gives an overview of the current state of the art on this topic. Several aspects of the methodology are discussed, like the type of magnetic nanoparticles most commonly used, parameters of the application of the magnetic field, animal and tumor models, techniques used to follow the tumor growth, and the evaluation of the treatment effectiveness. The comparison and critical argumentation of all these points are expected to shed some light on the field of magnetic hyperthermia and show the current tendencies in this kind of experiments.