Currently, the low survival rate and poor prognosis of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma are ascribed to the lack of early and accurate diagnosis and resistance to radiotherapy. In parallel, the integration of imaging-guided diagnosis and precise treatment has gained much attention in the field of theranostic nanotechnology. However, constructing dual-modal imaging-guided nanotheranostics with desired imaging performance as well as great biocompatibility remains challenging. Therefore, we developed a simple but multifunctional nanotheranostic GdCPP for the early and accurate diagnosis and efficient treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), which combined fluorescence imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) onto a single nanoplatform for imaging-guided subsequent photodynamic therapy (PDT). GdCPP had an appropriate particle size (81.93 ± 0.69 nm) and was highly stable, resulting in sufficient tumor accumulation, which along with massive reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation upon irradiation further significantly killed tumor cells. Moreover, GdCPP owned much stronger r1 relaxivity (9.396 mM-1 s-1) compared to clinically used Gd-DTPA (5.034 mM-1 s-1) and exhibited better T1WI MRI performance. Under dual-modal imaging-guided PDT, GdCPP achieved efficient therapeutic outcomes without causing any noticeable tissue damage. The results of in vitro and in vivo studies indicated that GdCPP may be a suitable candidate for dual-modal imaging-guided precision tumor therapy.
Keywords: imaging-guided therapy; magnetic resonance imaging; nanotheranostic; nasopharyngeal carcinoma; photodynamic therapy.