Photodynamic therapy for pancreatic carcinoma: experimental and clinical studies

Pancreatic carcinoma is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the United Kingdom, with an overall 5-year survival of less than 5%. Attempted curative surgery is possible in less than 20% of cases and is associated with a 5-year survival of just 10–20%. Palliative radio-chemotherapy improves symptoms of pancreatic cancer but rarely extends median survival beyond 12 months. There is a need to develop novel therapies that improve outcome. Photodynamic therapy, which is a way of producing localised non-thermal tissue necrosis with light, is currently under evaluation as a treatment for pancreatic cancer. This review will examine some of the mechanisms underlying photodynamic therapy, and the preclinical work, which has led to this treatment being piloted in human studies.