Advantages of combined photodynamic therapy in the treatment of oncological diseases

Biophysical Reviews: Turning the page from 2022 to 2023

“…This was an SI dedicated to highlighting work presented at the 9 th Congress of the Russian Society for Photobiology (Tsygankov et al 2022). The Issue contained 28 articles roughly split into three sections: (i) front matter material discussing the meeting and society which included an editorial and a commentary outlining the society's history (Tsygankov and Tsuchin 2022;Koppel and Krasnovsky 2022), (ii) a series of session commentaries that summarized the talks presented in the different thematic sections (e.g., Proskuryakov and Semenov 2022), and (iii) review articles (twenty in total) discussing physical aspects of the interaction of light with biomolecules in areas as diverse as plant photosynthesis (Kochetova et al 2022;Terentyev 2022) and photodynamic therapy in human patients (Feldman et al 2022;Grin et al 2022).…”

Grand challenges in bioinorganic chemistry

“…Type II photosensitisers undergo triplet-triplet annihilation to give singlet oxygen and are the most dependent on intracellular oxygen concentrations. In the much rarer Type III mechanism, the photosensitiser itself targets and binds the biomolecules in the cell and through excited state energy transfer, causes cell death (Grin et al, 2022).…”

Microneedle Device Delivering Aggregation-Induced Emission Photosensitizers for Enhanced Metronomic Photodynamic Therapy of Cancer

“…Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a relatively new treatment method that contains three components: photosensitizers (PSs), light, and oxygen. − When PSs are enriched in the tumor, the use of specific wavelengths of light can excite the PSs in the tumor and convert the oxygen in the tumor into biotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn kills the tumor cells. , The advantages of this light-conditioned triggered treatment are its controllability, high safety profile, low drug resistance, and the possibility of combination therapy. − Even so, PDT has gradually fallen out of favor because it has not achieved the expected results in some clinical trials or still falls short compared to existing treatment technologies. − In these clinical trials, treatment was performed using high-intensity (hundreds of mW cm –2 ), short-time light (several minutes), a mode in which tumor cells tend to die primarily in the form of necrosis. In recent years, a new PDT modality, metronomic photodynamic therapy (mPDT), has emerged, which refers to the use of low-intensity (<1 mW cm –2 ), prolonged light (several hours) for treatment, while tumor cell death is presented more in the form of apoptosis. − Several studies have confirmed in vitro experiments that mPDT has better therapeutic efficacy compared to conventional PDT, demonstrating a better application prospect. , However, there are still some challenges to be addressed for mPDT.…”