ABSTRACT
The advent of nanoscience and nanotechnology offers unprecedented opportunities in nanomedicine, such as increas-ing therapeutic efficiency and decreasing undesired side effects in cancer treatment. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a non-invasive pho-totherapy-based method that is applied in the treatment of cancer and other diseases and has important clinical value. PDT can be com-bined with other therapies to realize the synergistic treatment. The emergence of up-conversion nanomaterials provides a fundamental method to solve the problem of photodynamic therapy of deep tumors. Moreover, the versatile preparation and surface modification methods facilitate the fine-tuning of the emission spectrum of up-conversion nanomaterials and the improvement of the photosensitiz-er's loading capacity. This study reviews the development in design and application of up-conversion nanomaterials for PDT of cancer.