Diagnosis and multitherapy strategies that coexist in a single system for cancer therapy has a great clinical application potential. In this paper, we developed doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded gelatin hydrogels contained with UCNP@NGO nanoparticles (Gelatin/UCNP@NGO+DOX) for chemophotothermal dual-model synergistic cancer therapy and upconversion luminescence (UCL) imaging. Gelatin/UCNP@NGO+DOX hydrogels could release the DOX via laser irradiation or in tumor microenvironment, and then cancer therapy efficiency could be improved by chemophotothermal synergistic effects. In vitro experimental Gelatin/UCNP@NGO+DOX hydrogels exhibit outstanding photothermal properties and excellent tumor-killing efficiency. We also use in vivo antitumor experiments to further illustrate that Gelatin/UCNP@NGO+DOX hydrogels can exhibit excellent synergistic antitumor efficacy, compared with chemotherapy or photothermal methods. This paper shows a new hydrogel system that could both load chemotherapeutic drugs efficiently and enhance chemotherapy effect using near-infrared light-radiation photothermal therapy.
Keywords: chemotherapy; gelatin; injectable hydrogels; photothermal therapy; upconversion luminescence.