Cancer Of The Pancreas And Light Therapy

Light therapy, sometimes called photodynamic therapy, is one of the treatments that made inroads against pancreatic cancer, one of the most difficult cancer to treat because, as doctors agree, it is near major arteries and organs and plays an important role in body functions.

How does it work? The therapy delivers targeted beams of brilliant light into the abdomen, shrank the tumor and increased the lifespan of many of the patients who was given it, as reported in the British journal Gut. Patients were first injected with a chemical, mesotetrahydroxyphenyl , that would make their cells highly sensitive to light. Three days after, doctors inserted six fiber-optic needles through the abdominal skin that pointed directly at the tumor. They then beamed a diode laser down the needles, with the goal of killing the sensitized cancer cells with intense red light.

Light therapy , although not a cure, is highly encouraging, especially for frail patients who are too weak for surgery , the authors said. " There was no treatment - related mortality , most patients were out of hospital in less than 10 days after treatment, and morbidity was considerably less that would be expected after surgery," the authors added.