Application of Nanomaterials in Photodynamic Therapy for Tumor

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a kind of non-invasive treatment mediated by photosensitizer or its nanoparticles. Under the activation of light, the biological molecule and cell change in morphology or function, leading to cell damage and necrosis, which is also known as sensitizing light-oxidation. Photosensitizer nanoparticles, light, singlet oxygen are the vital components of PDT. At present, PDT is mainly used in the clinical treatment of malignant tumors due to its high selectivity, low toxicity, microtrauma, excellent targeting, repeated treatment, short treatment time, and it can be combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In order to introduce the present situation and prospect the development of PDT, a systematic introduction about photosensitizer and PDT is presented based on the published literatures. The results show that photosensitizer nanoparticles based PDT have specific effects of penetration and retention on tumor tissue, particularly for small and shallow tumor. They also possess exciting auxiliary effect on malignant tumor. In short, PDT has broad application prospects in cancer therapy.