Nanoparticles in Medical Radiations

Dear Colleagues,

Radiation is applied in medicine in two forms, namely diagnosis “radiology” and treatment “radiotherapy”, with both ionising (X-rays, gamma rays and particles) and non-ionising radiation (ultrasound, ultraviolet and infrared spectrum) techniques playing significant roles in disease determination and treatment.

Over the last 25 years, the use of nanoparticles in medical radiation techniques has grown significantly. Materials present in the nanoparticle form exhibit different properties and characteristics to the “bulk” form. Gold nanoparticles have been successfully used as imaging contrasting agents to improve image quality. Additionally, they have most significantly been used as radiation dose enhancers or “radiosensitisers”, capable of increasing the dose deposited by a clinical radiotherapy beam to a cancerous tumour when present, hence increasing the radiotherapy beam’s “killing potential”. Synergistically, these two properties make gold nanoparticles potential theranostic agents able to image and provide therapeutic benefit to cancer treatments.

Understanding the properties of both nanoparticles and the cellular target (molecularly and biologically) is crucial in the advancement of the current applications of nanoparticles and radiation in modern medicine. Therefore, this issue will consider for publication any work involving nanomaterials (either organic or metallic) in medical radiation, including studies of image quality, radiotherapy and radiobiology, in the hopes of highlighting the ongoing efforts in this field.

Prof. Dr. Moshi Geso
Guest Editor

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