Photodynamic therapy as an adjuvant intraoperative treatment of recurrent head and neck carcinomas

摘要

Despite aggressive surgical and radiotherapy, recurrence rates for patients with recurrent head and neck carcinomas remain high. Photodynamic therapy has been successfully used to treat patients with early carcinomas. This is due to the ability of the activating laser light to penetrate up to one centimeter into tissue resulting in destruction of microscopic tumor with preservation of normal tissues. Employing this principle, PDT was used as an adjuvant intraoperative therapy following resection of tumor in four patients with recurrent infiltrating carcinomas of the head and neck. All patients tolerated the treatment without complications and remain free of disease six months post-treatment. Adjuvant intraoperative PDT may improve cure rates of recurrent head and neck malignancies by providing for larger tumor-free margins of resection while preserving normal structures.