Oxygenation, photodynamic therapy

Photodynamic therapy uses non-thermal red light to activate verteporfin, which produces reactive oxygen species that locally damage the neovascular endothelium.24 Verteporfin treatment reduces the risk of loss of visual acuity and legal blindness over 1 to 2 years. Long-term results are not yet available. Severe photosensitivity for 3 to 5 days after the procedure is common and some patients experience a severe loss of vision. Eventually, most patients have some visual recovery. This procedure requires multiple treatments over time.22... 

The most important application for singlet oxygen generators (SOGs), namely the anti-cancer treatment known as photodynamic therapy (PDT), is described elsewhere in this series (see Chapter 9.22). However, SOGs are also being evaluated in other areas, such as hard surface disinfectants, soaps and washing powders,73 and insecticides.74,75... 

Photodynamic therapy is based on a phenomenon known as photodynamic action, or the photodynamic effect, which are terms used to describe the damage to living tissue caused by certain photosensitizers in the presence of visible light and oxygen. Again, there is an extensive historical record, which has been reviewed several times during the 1990s.4,9-15... 

Porphyrins and related structures have long been used in photodynamic therapy (PDT). In PDT, the photo-induced production of singlet oxygen is the toxifying... 

Singlet Oxygen and Photodynamic Therapy for Cancer Treatment... 

Keywords Photodynamic therapy Photosensitizer Photochemistry Reactive oxygen species Cancer Microorganism Infection... 

Fuchs J, Thiele J (1998) The role of oxygen in cutaneous photodynamic therapy. Free Radical Biology and Medicine 24 835-847. 

Phototherapy is the generic term covering therapies which use light either with or without a sensitiser. Those that do not require a sensitiser use the natural chromophores within the tissue to perform this function e.g. treatment of vitamin D deficiency in rickets, and neonatal jaundice). Those that do use an added sensitiser include photochemotherapy (largely psoriasis and skin disorders) and photodynamic therapy (currently mainly cancer). Photodynamic therapy is differentiated from photochemotherapy by its additional requirement for the presence of oxygen at molecular or ambient levels.In this text we will deal only with photodynamic therapy since, at the present time, this is the main driving force in phototherapy. ° ... 

The ability of a range of 2,4,6-triaryl thio-, seleno- and telluro- pyrylium dyes to generate singlet oxygen and hence to function as sensitiseis for photodynamic therapy has been examined <99JMC3942,3953>. 

The reaction serves as an illustrative example of the synthetic utilization of the Te(II)—>Te(IV) two-electron shuttle. Another promising application is seen in photodynamic therapy in which tellurapyrylium dyes 119 can function as photosensitizers to produce either singlet oxygen or superoxide radical-anions (via electron transfer), thereby serving as cytotoxic agents. An important useful property of tellurapyrylium dyes is their absorbance in the near-infrared region where biological tissues are most important. 

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