Open Access

REVIEW

Application of photodynamic therapy in cancer: challenges and advancements

ZIXUAN WANG^1,#, HONGMEI PENG^2,#, WEI SHI^4,#, LU GAN¹, LIPING ZHONG¹, JIAN HE¹, LINLIN XIE¹, PAN WU¹, YONGXIANG ZHAO¹, ZHIMING DENG^3,*, HONGLIANG TANG⁴, YONG HUANG^1,3,*

1 National Center for International Research of Bio-Targeting Theranostics, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Bio-Targeting Theranostics, Collaborative Innovation Center for Targeting Tumor Diagnosis and Therapy, Guangxi Talent Highland of Bio-Targeting Theranostics, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, China
2 Scientific Research and Education Department, The First People’s Hospital of Changde City, Changde, 415000, China
3 The First People’s Hospital of Changde City, Changde, 415000, China
4 Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, 530001, China

* Address correspondence to: Zhiming Deng, ; Yong Huang,
# These authors contributed equally to this work

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Cellular Biomechanics in Health and Diseases)

BIOCELL 2021, 45(3), 489-500. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2021.014439

Received 27 September 2020; Accepted 11 November 2020; Issue published 03 March 2021

Abstract

Although great achievements have been made in the past decades in medicine, cancer remains a worldwide public health issue. Surgery is usually accompanied by shortcomings such as residual lesions and poor treatment effects, and the successive appearance of other treatment methods, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, has not changed the postoperative recurrence rate, toxicity, and side effects. However, the advent of photodynamic therapy has greatly improved this situation. Photodynamic therapy is an emerging tumor diagnosis and treatment technology with good application prospects, photodynamic therapy uses a specific wavelength of light to excite a photosensitizer to generate reactive oxygen species, damage tumor blood vessels and promote tumor cell apoptosis, exerting an antitumor effect. Photodynamic therapy has become a new clinical anti-tumor therapy due to its clear efficacy, few side effects, and easy use in combination with other therapies. In this review, we summarized the main mechanism, current challenges, and advancements of photodynamic therapy.

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