Pharmacokinetic Study of Superparamagnetic Materials

In the last few decades, several published reports are available regarding the biomedical aspect of the magnetic nanoparticles but there is a lack in the pharmacokinetic aspect. Amongst various magnetic materials, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have tremendous application potential in the biomedical area. They can act as drug cargo, hyperthermia and MRI agents. They can be surface engineered or functionalized for specific targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs and can be used as potent hyperthermia agents due to their high saturation magnetization and effective magnetic relaxation process. Along with the therapeutic applications, SPIONs are used for diagnostics too. While so many reports are available regarding the in vivo and in vitro studies, the pharmacokinetic aspect of the SPIONs needs more attention. The behaviour of SPIONs in blood, their absorption and distribution along with metabolism and excretion needs to be explored extensively in vivo. Here, in this chapter we have given details about the SPIONs, their synthesis procedure, their applications towards cancer therapy as well their absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity. Along with this, clinically approved SPIONs as well as their future scope are also highlighted.