Casu C, Orrù G. Potential of photodynamic therapy in the management of infectious oral diseases. World J Exp Med 2024; 14(1): 84284 [PMID: 38590303 DOI: 10.5493/wjem.v14.i1.84284]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Cinzia Casu, MD, Adjunct Professor, Department of Surgical Science, Oral Biotechnology Laboratory, University of Cagliari, Via Ospedale 54, Cagliari 09124, Italy. ginzia.85@hotmail.it
Research Domain of This Article
Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Editorial
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Exp Med. Mar 20, 2024; 14(1): 84284 Published online Mar 20, 2024. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v14.i1.84284
Potential of photodynamic therapy in the management of infectious oral diseases
Cinzia Casu, Germano Orrù
Cinzia Casu, Germano Orrù, Department of Surgical Science, Oral Biotechnology Laboratory, University of Cagliari, Cagliari 09124, Italy
Co-corresponding authors: Cinzia Casu and Germano Orrù.
Author contributions: Casu C contributed to ideas and writing of the work; Orrù G contributed to bibliographic support, creation of the figure and final revision; Casu C and Orrù G are both corresponding authors because they have different areas of expertise (Casu C is a clinician with expertise in oral pathology, and Orrù G is a biologist with expertise in microbiology and molecular biology); All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare having no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Cinzia Casu, MD, Adjunct Professor, Department of Surgical Science, Oral Biotechnology Laboratory, University of Cagliari, Via Ospedale 54, Cagliari 09124, Italy. ginzia.85@hotmail.it
Received: July 28, 2023 Peer-review started: July 28, 2023 First decision: October 9, 2023 Revised: November 24, 2023 Accepted: December 19, 2023 Article in press: December 19, 2023 Published online: March 20, 2024 Processing time: 234 Days and 18.6 Hours
Abstract
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) can take place in the presence of three elements: Light with an appropriate wavelength; a photosensitizer; and the presence of oxygen. This type of treatment is very effective overall against bacterial, viral and mycotic cells. In the last 10 years many papers have been published on PDT with different types of photosensitizers (e.g., methylene blue, toluidine blue, indocyanine green, curcumin-based photosensitizers), different wavelengths (e.g., 460 nm, 630 nm, 660 nm, 810 nm) and various parameters (e.g., power of the light, time of illumination, number of sessions). In the scientific literature all types of PDT seem very effective, even if it is difficult to find a standard protocol for each oral pathology. PDT could be an interesting way to treat some dangerous oral infections refractory to common pharmacological therapies, such as candidiasis from multidrug-resistant Candida spp.
Core Tip: In recent years there are more and more multidrug resistant infections at the oral level, and this has led researchers to find alternative solutions to conventional pharmacology that have no impact on systemic health. Among these, there is photodynamic therapy, which has demonstrated efficacy both in vitro and in vivo, for treating bacterial, viral (reducing recrudescence) and fungal infections, particularly multidrug-resistant Candida spp.
