Free radicals for cancer theranostics

Abstract Free radicals were generally regarded as highly reactive, transient and harmful species. In fact, some of the free radicals can also be inactive, long-lived and beneficial for our health. These properties of free radicals provide future possibilities for their application in various fields. Owning to their open-shell electronic structure, free radicals exhibit unique advantages in biomedical applications, such as high reactivity, photoacoustic and photothermal conversion ability, molecular magnetic. In this review, recent progress on free radicals and their applications in cancer theranostics are presented. Typical materials that exhibit controlled generation of free radicals and their applications for photodynamic therapy (PDT), chemodynamic therapy (CDT), sonodynamic therapy (SDT), gas therapy, hypoxic cancer treatment, photothermal therapy (PTT), photoacoustic imaging (PAI) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are summarized and discussed.