Photodynamic therapy of centrally located early-stage lung cancer

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with photofrin II and excimer dye laser has an excellent effect oil patients (pts) with centrally located early stage lung cancer with a limited tumor length of 1 cm or less and a clearly visible tumor margin. Further, to expand the therapeutic area of PDT to these early stage lung cancers, it is necessary to exploit more powerful laser equipment and more sensitive sensitizers. Also, it is essential in the decision to treat early stage lung cancer to evaluate whether PDT can he used as an effective alternative therapy to surgery in patients with operable centrally located early-stage lung cancer. Finally, it is an important issue for the treatment of centrally located early-stage lung cancer to determine which therapeutic modalities have to be selected as the initial choice in endoscopic therapy.