“…In this context, phthalocyanine-based complexes, which present strong absorption in the therapeutic window, good singlet oxygen quantum yield, and excellent thermal stability (Robertson et al, 2009 ; Liu et al, 2018 ), have aroused great interest and have been considered second-generation photosensitizers for use in PDT. In general, hexacoordinated phthalocyanine complexes bearing different d-metal ions can be synthesized (Liu et al, 2007 ; Kabwe et al, 2019 ; Mohammed et al, 2019 ; Yin et al, 2019 ), to afford flexible environments that could form octahedral species. To explore the structure–activity relationship of this group further, it is important to investigate the anti-cancer efficacy and specificity of new phthalocyanine complexes, which may shed light on the cytotoxicity of these compounds during clinical therapy of different types of cancer.…”