Jana Cizkova ¹ Ondrej Jan Dolezal ¹ Vojtech Buchta ² Jan Pospichal ² Vit Blanar ² Zuzana Šinkorová ¹ Anna Carrillo ^1*

• ¹ Department of Radiobiology, Military Faculty of Medicine, University of Defence, Hradec Kralove, Czechia
• ² Department of Clinical Subspecialities, Faculty of Health Studies, University of Pardubice, Pardubice, Pardubice, Czechia

The past 30 years have brought undeniable progress in medicine, biology, physics, and research.Knowledge as to the nature of the human body, diseases, and disorders has been constantly improving, and the same is true regarding their treatment and diagnosis. One of the greatest advances in recent years has been the introduction of nanoparticles into medicine. Nanoparticles (NPs) refer to a material at a nanometer scale (0.1-100 nm) with features (specific physical, chemical, and biological properties) that are broadly and increasingly used in the medical field.Their applications in cancer treatment and radiotherapy seem particularly attractive. In this field, inorganic/metal NPs with high atomic number Z have been employed mainly due to their ability to enhance ionizing radiation's photoelectric and Compton effects and thereby to increase the efficacy of conventional radiation therapy. The improvement enabled by NPs relates to their enhanced permeation ability and longer retention effect in tumor cells, capacity to reduce toxicity of commercially available cancer drugs through advanced NPs drug delivery systems, radiation sensitizers of tumors, or enhancers of radiation doses to tumors. Advanced options according to size, core, and surface modification allow even such multimodal approaches in therapy as nanotheranostics or combined treatments. The current state of knowledge emphasizes the role of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in sensitizing tumors to radiation. We have reviewed AuNPs and their radiosensitizing power during radiation treatment. Our results are divided into groups based on AuNPs surface modification and/or core structure design. This paper provides a complete summary of the in vivo sensitizing effect of AuNPs, surface-modified AuNPs, and AuNPs combined with different elements, providing evidence for further successful veterinarian and clinical implementation.