Near-infrared BODIPY-based theranostic agents for photothermal and combinatory therapy of cancers, where do we stand in year 2025

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a promising method in tumor treatments due to its high effectiveness in destructing tumors locally and precisely with spatiotemporal controllability and minimal invasiveness, which strongly relies on the efficiency of PTT agents. Recently, the research on BODIPY-based PTT agents is burgeoning because of their intrinsic merits including large extinction coefficient, ease to tune the structure and photophysical properties within near-infrared (NIR) region. Herein, we offer a timely update on the recent advancements of BODIPYs for PTT and combinatory theranostic applications in the last three years. Importantly, the special focus is on the synthetic strategies for NIR BODIPYs with optimal PTT and customized performances for cancer theranostics, which include core functionalization, donor-acceptor adjustment, π-π conjugation and aggregation controllability. Furthermore, we summarize the emerging photoacoustic, fluorescence, multimodal imaging in the NIR windows for cancer theranostics with BODIPYs. More importantly, the combinatory photothermal modalities with BODIPYs for enhanced therapeutic outcomes are pointed out. Lastly, to resolve the current challenges related to BODIPYs, some insights on future advancements and the role of AI to automate the designing process of BODIPY-based PTAs have been discussed. Hopefully, this review will stimulate interest among researchers to expedite the translation of BODIPY from bench to bedside.