Nanocatalysts-augmented Fenton chemical reaction for nanocatalytic tumor therapy

It is the challenging goal in cancer biomedicine to search novel cancer-therapeutic modality with concurrent high therapeutic efficiency on combating cancer and low side effects to normal cells/tissues. The recently developed nanocatalytic cancer therapy based on catalytic Fenton reaction represents one of the promising paradigms for potential clinical translation, which has got fast progress very recently. This progress report discusses the rational design and fabrication of Fenton reaction-based nanocatalysts for triggering the in-situ Fenton chemical reaction within tumor microenvironment to generate highly toxic hydroxyl radicals (•OH), which is highly efficient for killing the cancer cells and suppressing the tumor growth. Several strategies for optimizing the nanocatalytic cancer-therapeutic efficiency of Fenton reaction have been highlighted, including screening high-performance Fenton nanocatalysts, increasing peroxide-hydrogen amounts as the reactants, changing the Fenton-reaction conditions (e.g., temperature, acidity and photo-triggering), and Fenton reaction-based synergistic cancer therapy such as some sequential nanocatalytic reactions with improved therapeutic outcome. The facing challenges and future developments of Fenton reaction-based nanocatalytic cancer therapy are also discussed for further promoting the clinical translation of this emerging cancer-therapeutic modality to benefit the cancer patients.