Photodynamic Therapy: An Additional Option for Cancer Therapy

1st Asia Pacific Conference on Health Law, Manado-North Sulawesi, Indonesia, 19-22 May 2010There are some kinds of cancer therapy, such as: chemo, radiation, surgery, hormone, and immunotherapy. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a treatment consisting three components, i.e. light, oxygen, and photosensitiser drug. Photosensitisers are chemical compounds which are able to absorb energy from a light of specific wavelength (infra red) and use this energy to stimulate chemical reactions in cells and body tissues. In this treatment, the target tissue is exposed to the light, which is suitable for exciting the photosensitiser. The photosensitiser is excited from a ground singlet state to an excited singlet state. It then undergoes intersystem crossing to a longer-lived excited triplet state. This triplet state will react with ground triplet state of molecular oxygen, creating singlet oxygen. Singlet oxygen rapidly destructs nearby biomolecules. Significantly, the specific targets depend on the photosensitiser, hence determined the affectivity and efficiency of the treatment. There has been many sensitizer developed, among them is porphyrin, bacteriochlorophyll, and its derivates. To date, this therapy is widely used to treat patients who are suffered from bladder, head, neck, and esophagus cancers. Some researchers reported that the therapy could achieve 90% effectiveness, or even more. Hence, this therapy could be a promising therapy to cure people who suffered from cancer. However, this treatment shows side effects, i.e.: skin photosensitivity and renal problems. There is a long way for this treatment to become patented, trustworthy treatment and therefore, further investigation and promotion are highly needed. In conclusion, each therapy has advantages, limitation and side effects. The best treatment should be determined to minimize the possibility of malpractic