Frankfurt – On February 4,
World Cancer Day, the public attention for the fight against cancer will be
raised once more: In Germany alone, 400.000 new instances of cancer are counted
every year. The good news: More and more people affected can be helped effectively.
In addition to mainstream treatments like chemo therapy, radiation and surgery,
new therapeutic approaches like Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) or results from
molecular biologic research will be increasingly applied in the future.
Concerning this, Dr. Winrich Rauschning, oncologist and PDT
specialist, comments: “The future of cancer therapy belongs among others to
molecular biological research. It reveals the mechanisms carcinogenesis. These
insights resulted in the idea to influence specific metabolic processes with
the aim to prevent carcinogenesis or slow it down. Here, there are
trend-setting approaches in place that may once be developed into a cancer
vaccine”, Rauschning explained. “Light in combination with so-called photosensitizes
(PDT) can often be a very good alternative and addition, because it works
locally in a very accurate way. Good examples are skin tumors and the head and
neck area.” Battling cancer cells with light-sensitive, non-toxic agents
reacting with light respectively laser light takes place in a gentle and
function-conserving way as well as mostly without scarring. Thus PDT also
offers patients significant value for aesthetic reasons.
Photodynamic Therapy is a procedure for the treatment of tumors
and other tissue mutations. It applies light in combination with a light-activatable
substance (photo sensitizer) and oxygen present in the tissue. The sensitizer
gathers selectively in the tumor or tissue mutation. When the cancer cells are
exposed to light with the appropriate wave length, reactive types of oxygen are
generated impacting on and destroying cancer cells.
In Germany,
there are a growing number of hospitals and medical practices treating patients
with PDT. In England and the
Netherlands,
photodynamic therapy is already paid for by the public health insurances.
The initiative “Light against Cancer” aims at increasing the
publicity of Photodynamic Therapy. In this way, the discussion about parallel
and combined forms of cancer treatments shall be fostered. Further information
is collected also in English on the website http://www.licht-gegen-krebs.de/en/
About “Light against Cancer”
“Light against cancer” is an ambitious private initiative against cancer with a
focus on Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) in Germany. “Light against cancer”
intends to make PDT better known to the public and help to entrench it as an
established form of therapy against the widespread disease cancer. We have set
ourselves the goal to educate about PDT and to convince physicians and people
affected of the advantages of PDT.
Posted by Sean Fenske, Editor-in-Chief, MDT
