photodynamic therapy

Czech Scientists Enhanced Cancer Treatment

A group of Czech scientists working for the Czech Academy of Sciences Molecular Genetics Institute with Michal Dvorak on the head, according to the Academy media department report to the ČTK, made recently a very important discovery – they managed to get a new substance that makes cancer tumor cells perform self-annihilation.

The scientists believe that the new substance could be very beneficial in the nearest future for enhancing one of the potential methods of cancer treatment – so called method of "photodynamic effect". Dvorak team worked in this field in cooperation with the scholars of the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology and the 1st Medical Faculty of Charles University.

Photodynamic therapy is already used in several countries for treating some kinds of cancer tumors.
Broadly speaking, a patient takes so called photosensitizing agent or photosensitizer influenced then by the light of specific wavelength which determines for how far the light can penetrate into the body and then this drug outputs a form of oxygen that destroys nearby cancerous cells.

Czech scientists discovered that some new derivatives of porphyrin, a substance found in the protoplasm of animals and plants, can act as very efficient photosensitizing agents causing annihilation of malignant cells. They proved that the efficiency of this substance during the laboratory testing on mice was higher than that of the photosensitizers used earlier.

Image: Dr. Chen, University of Texas at Arlington (nanowerk.com)

Date: 20/11/2008