Recent Trends in Photodynamic Therapy Using Upconversion Nanoparticles

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a great potential approach for the localized tumor removal with fewer metastatic potentials and side effects in treating the disease. In the treatment process, a photosensitizer (PS) that absorbs a light energy to generate reactive oxygen is essential. In general, a visible light is used as a light source of PDT, so that side effects from the light source are inevitable. For this reason, upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) using near-infrared (NIR) as an excitation source are attracting attention in the field of disease diagnosis and treatment. UCNPs have the low cytotoxicity and phototoxicity, and also advantages such as deep tissue penetration and low background autofluorescence. For PDT, UCNPs should be combined with a PS which absorbs the light energy from UCNPs and transfers it to the surrounding oxygen to produce reactive oxygen. In addition, the therapeutic efficacy can be improved by modifying nanoparticle surfaces, adding anti-cancer drugs, or combining with photothermal therapy (PTT). In this review, we summarize the recent research to improve the efficiency of PDT using UCNPs.