Polymer-Based Nanomaterials for Noninvasive Cancer Photothermal Therapy

Over the past decade, noninvasive photothermal therapy (PTT) has been intensively investigated for the treatment of tumors. In contrast to the traditional therapies, PTT has high tumor ablation efficiency and slight or no side effects, which are promising in medicine and clinical applications. In this review, we introduce the application of polymer-based nanomaterials for PTT of cancer and focus on the development profile, typical researches, and the latest research progress of the representative polymer photothermal agents (PTAs). We briefly summarize common PTAs involving inorganic materials and organic small molecules dyes and describe the polymer-based PTAs, including polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), polydopamine (PDA), donor–acceptor (D–A) structured polymer molecules, and poly­(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly­(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS).Through this review, we can have an overall understanding of polymer photothermal materials in cancer photothermal therapy.