Photodynamic therapy for airway malignancies: the Ohio State University experience since 1998

Although treatment of cutaneous breast and lung cancers with photodynamic therapy (PDT) was initiated in the 1970s and 1980s, approval of its use in the United States for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) came in 1998. That same year, the first PDT procedure for NSCLC was performed at The Ohio State University (OSU), and since then, approximately 1000 cases of airway malignancies have been treated with PDT there. Based on this extensive experience at OSU, PDT has emerged as an effective alternative for the palliative treatment of hemoptysis, obstructive metastatic disease to the lungs, and tracheal lesions, with a low rate of complications. Moving beyond its role for symptomatic relief, PDT also may prove to be useful in the curative setting as induction therapy in conjunction with other modalities, such as surgery and chemotherapy, and for early airway cancer. Further investigation into the indirect systemic effects and associated inflammatory reactions with PDT may make the term photoimmunotherapy a more accurate designation.