Graphene is viable for photothermal therapy. An 808 nm laser at a power density of 2 W/cm was used to irradiate the tumor sites on mice for 5 minutes. As noted by the authors, the power densities of lasers used to heat gold nanorods range from 2 to 4 W/cm. Thus, these nanoscale graphene sheets require a laser power on the lower end of the range used with gold nanoparticles to photothermally ablate tumors.
In 2012, Yang et al. incorporated the promising results regarding nanoscale reduced graphene oxide reported by Robinson et al. into another in vivo mice study., an order of magnitude lower than previously required power densities. This study demonstrates the higher efficacy of nanoscale reduced graphene oxide sheets as compared to both nanoscale graphene sheets and gold nanorods.