Radioluminescent nanomaterials: towards deep tissue PDT activation during radiation therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has seen long standing interest as a therapy for resistant cancers, but the main Achilles’ heel for its successful clinical exploitation is the use of poorly penetrating visible light. Indeed, PDT is intrinsically restricted by the low penetration depth of light in tissue and is therefore mostly used to treat superficial or optical-fiber accessible lesions. An elegant non-invasive approach to overcome this limitation is to conjugate the photosensitizers to radioluminescent nanomaterials, also called nanoscintillators, and to activate these with radiation therapy.