Photodynamic Therapy
What is Photodynamic Therapy?
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved Photodynamic Therapy - a new treatment for use in patients with "wet" macular degeneration.
During this procedure, a drug named Visudyne is injected into a patient's bloodstream. This form of therapy treats cancer by exposing the cancer cells to a powerful light at a particular frequency. Using a photosensitiser, doctors selectively destroy cancerous cells through the use of fixed frequency light. This process then activates photosensitizing drugs collected in the body beforehand.
In a matter of days after Visudyne has been injected, the drug selectively concentrates in cancer cells and disappears quickly from normal cells. The treated cancer cells are then exposed by a doctor to a laser light to the cancer site (mesothelioma, the pleura) through a fiber optic device allowing the doctor to control the laser light. As the agent in the treated cells absorbs the light, an active form of oxygen destroys the surrounding cancer cells. A doctor must carefully time the light exposure so that it occurs when most of the photosensitizing drug has left the healthy cells but remains present in cancerous ones.
Photodynamic Therapy has an advantage because less heat is required from the laser which means that healthy tissues around the site of the procedure receive less collateral damage. It is used in many other types of cancer patients and promises an advance in cancer treatment.
Summary paraphrased from Mesothelioma Center.
