It has long been a dream to achieve tumor targeting therapy
that can efficiently reduce the toxicity and severe side effects of
conventional antitumor chemotherapeutic agents. Taking advantage
of the abnormalities of tumor vasculature, we demonstrate
here a new powerful tumor vascular-targeting therapeutic
technique for solid cancers that applies advanced nanotechnology
to cut off the nutrient supply of tumor cells by physically
destroying the abnormal tumor blood vessels. Water soluble
magnetic Gd@C82 nanocrystals of the chosen sizes are deliberately
designed with abilities to penetrate into the leaky tumor
blood vessels. By triggering the radiofrequency induced phase
transition of gadofullerene nanocrystals while extravasating the
tumor blood vessel, the explosive structural change of nanoparticles
generates a devastating impact on abnormal tumor blood
vessels, resulting in a rapid and extensive ischemia necrosis and
shrinkage of the tumors. This unprecedented target-specific
physiotherapy is found to work perfectly for advanced and refractory
solid tumors.