Surgery is the most common means to treat cancer, however, it may not be sufficiently effective due to the high recurrence rate after treatment. In order to reduce the incidence of relapse, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are often implemented after surgery, but serious complications and side effects may arise.

Photothermal therapy (PTT), as a fledgling therapeutic strategy for cancer treatment with minimal invasiveness, its clinical adoption has been stifled by concerns such as insufficient biodegradability of the PTT agents and lack of an efficient delivery system.

Prof. YU Xuefeng, together with Prof. WANG Huaiyu and other colleagues from Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made new progress in the photothermal platform based on black phosphorus (BP) incorporated hydrogel for postsurgical treatment of cancer.

In their work, a new PTT system was designed by incorporating BP nanosheets with a thermosensitive hydrogel (PDLLA-PEG-PDLLA: PLEL) for the postoperative photothermal treatment of cancer. The BP@PLEL hydrogel exhibited excellent near infrared (NIR) photothermal performance, a rapid NIR-induced sol-gel transition as well as good biodegradability and biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo. 

Based on these merits, an in vivo PTT postoperative treatment strategy was established. Under NIR irradiation, the sprayed BP@PLEL hydrogel enabled rapid gelation forming a gelled membrane on wounds and offered high PTT efficacy to eliminate residual tumor tissues after tumor removal surgery.

Furthermore, the good photothermal antibacterial performance prevents infection and this efficient and biodegradable PTT system is very promising in postoperative treatment of cancer.

The paper entitled "Black-Phosphorus-Incorporated Hydrogel as a Sprayable and Biodegradable Photothermal Platform for Postsurgical Treatment of Cancer" was published in Advanced Science.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Fund of China, Shenzhen Peacock Innovation Team and Shenzhen Science and Technology Research Funding.

Schematic illustration of BP@PLEL hydrogel for postsurgical treatment of cancer (Image by Prof. YU Xuefeng)