PDT and the Immune System

Worldwide preclinical and clinical studies for more than two decades now have shown that photodynamic therapy (PDT) can be an integral part of a multimodal treatment approach to various cancer types and other malignancies. After the FDA’s approval of Photofrin, a commercially available hematoporphyrin derivative, in 1993 for patients with early and advanced stages of lung cancer, research utilizing PDT picked up speed globally. Today, PDT is a clinically approved therapeutic modality that is being successfully used for treatment of neoplastic and nonmalignant diseases.