Fundamentals and advances in magnetic hyperthermia

Nowadays, magnetic hyperthermia constitutes a complementary approach to cancer treatment. The use of magnetic particles as heating mediators, proposed in the 1950’s, provides a novel strategy for improving tumor treatment and, consequently, patient quality of life. This review reports a broad overview about several aspects of magnetic hyperthermia addressing new perspectives and the progress on relevant features such as the ad hoc preparation of magnetic nanoparticles, physical modeling of magnetic heating, methods to determine the heat dissipation power of magnetic colloids including the development of experimental apparatus and the influence of biological matrices on the heating efficiency.