Monitoring photodynamic therapy of head and neck malignancies with optical spectroscopies

Core Tip

Core tip: Most treatment approaches including chemo-radiation and surgery can induce prolonged morbidity and functional loss resulting in severe impairment of patients’ quality of life. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an emerging alternative treatment option without any significant accumulative side effects due to targeted light illumination and preferential accumulation of photosensitizers (PSs). However, PDT has not found widespread applications at the clinic mainly due to variable responses that originated from unstandardized treatment protocols such as different light and PS doses. Novel optical imaging techniques can quantify PDT-dosimetry related parameters such as local light and PS dose in tissue and PDT response related parameters such as tissue oxygenation and blood flow noninvasively without any contrast agent administration, thereby providing real-time feedback about the treatment efficacy for optimizing and standardizing PDT.