Synergistic in vivo photodynamic and photothermal antitumor therapy based on collagen-gold hybrid hydrogels with inclusion of photosensitive drugs

Phototherapies, including photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT), have shown great potential in non-invasive tumor treatments. To achieve targeted and effective antitumor therapy, it is highly desirable to combine the advantages of PDT and PTT in a delivery platform. Herein, we report a strategy to achieve synergistic PDT and PTT based on collagen-gold hybrid hydrogels, in which gold nanoparticles are incorporated as photothermal agents for PTT and photosensitive drugs are entrapped as photodynamic agents for PDT. In vivo antitumor results reveal that synergistic PDT and PTT exhibit the best antitumor effect with a tumor elimination rate up to 80% while PDT and PTT alone show less effective tumor inhibition. This synergistic therapy by the designed hydrogels does not cause body weight loss as compared to the control group without any treatment. Taken together, such a therapeutic strategy based on collagen-gold hybrid hydrogels with inclusion of photosensitive drugs may provide new alternatives for developing a type of delivery nanosystems toward synergistic antitumor therapy. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.