Gold nanoparticles mediation and fiber optics thermal monitoring for enhanced laser ablation

The use of nanomaterials in combination with laser ablation represents an advanced approach to cancer therapy. The injection of specific nanoparticles (NPs) into the tumor site, indeed, is able to enhance the localized heating by laser radiation conversion into thermal energy, resulting in more efficient tumor destruction. Simultaneously, temperature monitoring provides feedback about both treatment progress and NPs efficacy, being a valuable tool for enabling real-time adjustments in a clinical scenario based on the thermal distribution within the lesion. This study focuses on the development and testing of novel structures of polymer-coated gold NPs for laser ablation enhancement. Agarose-based phantoms embedding the synthesized NPs have been prepared to perform in-vitro tests and four arrays of fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) have been positioned inside the phantom in a reproducible configuration in order to accurately monitor the temperature inside the target region. Three kinds of NPs have been tested and compared in terms of induced temperature increase.