[Photodynamic method of cancer diagnosis and therapy--mechanisms and applications]

Cancers are diagnosed in over few millions patients annually. Due to inter alia weak antigenicity as well as drug-fastness of most cancers, PDT can become an effective alternative or complementary method to surgery. Photodynamic method requires tree elements: photosensitizer, light energy source and oxygen. Photodynamic therapy is successfully used method in many clinics all over the world, also in Poland. PDT is used in treatment of oncological (cancers of head, neck, lung, oesophagus, pancreas, urinary bladder and ginecological cancers) as non oncological diseases (lischen sclerosus, staphylococcus aureus, papillomatosis).