Abstract

In recent years, several papers in the literature considered theimportance of iron and other transition metal based compounds notonly in the preparation of magnetic nanostructured contrast media forMRI, SQUID and biosensing detection, but also in the manufacturing oflabelled compounds able to track cells and/or tissues in vivo and exvivo. In this way objects for targeting specific tissues can be obtained,pushing the diagnosis capability to the molecular level. In the lastfifteen years, this diagnostics ability has been joint to the possibilityof using the magnetic nanoparticles for delivering drugs and forreleasing heat locally, thus allowing to obtain theranostic agents forthe realization of the find-fight and follow approach in the treatment oftumour and of other diseases.