Photodynamic therapy is giving good results in patients who have throat and oral cancers.

In photodynamic therapy (PDT), the patient is given a light sensitive drug and then their tumor is exposed to laser light. The drug is preferentially absorbed by cancer cells and interacts with the light to create a toxic form of oxygen that kills the cells.

Doctors at the University of Maryland are excited by results they've been getting with PDT in throat and oral cancer. So far they have treated nine patients with throat cancer and three with oral cancer. PDT is as effective - maybe more so - than standard treatments, such as surgery and radiation. It also has fewer side effects, the main one being photosensitivity. This means the patient must keep out of sunlight for about six weeks after treatment.

PDT is approved for esophagal cancer, lung cancer and a precancerous skin condition called actinic keratosis. In clinical studies of 350 people with early-stage cancers of the mouth, throat and larynx, 88 per cent showed no evidence of the disease after the first treatment.

Source

University of Maryland Medical Center 28th February 2003