Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors-Based Thermometry of Gold Nanorod-Enhanced Photothermal Therapy in Tumor Model
Leonardo Bianchi, Rachael Mooney, Yvonne R. Cornejo, Caitlyn Hyde, Emiliano Schena, Jacob M. Berlin, Karen S. Aboody, Paola Saccomandi
Abstract
This work proposes the use of femtosecond laser-written fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors for internal temperature monitoring of tumors undergoing gold nanorod (AuNR)-mediated photothermal therapy (PTT). Arrays of sub-millimetric FBGs enabled an accurate and quasi-distributed temperature measurement within subcutaneous breast tumors in mice. Furthermore, FBGs permitted to investigate the laser-tissue interaction and AuNR-assisted photothermal enhancement on cancerous tissue exposed to 940 nm and 1064 nm radiations. The introduction of the tumor-localized AuNRs resulted in an overall increase of 13 °C of the mean temperature change, compared to control, in case of 1064 nm, while ~6 °C in case of 940 nm. This sensing solution allows the minimally invasive measurement of the internal tumor temperature under AuNR-assisted PTT. This feasibility study sets the basis for the evaluation of the thermal outcome mediated by nanoparticles under different laser sources.