Conjugated Polymer Materials for Photothermal Therapy

Although many approaches including operative treatment, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy have been developed to struggle against cancer, they are still insufficient in clinical application owing to the non-ideal therapeutic efficiency and serious side effects. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is emerging as a novel alternative to the conventional therapies because of minimal invasiveness and high specificity. Conjugated polymers (CPs) with the merits of unique optical properties and biological activities have been extensively investigated as functional photothermal conversion materials. The critical design strategies of CPs with high photothermal conversion efficiency and excellent PTT effect are reviewed in this progress report. The major challenges and future development of CPs for PTT are also discussed.