Photodynamic therapy for skin cancer.
Blue light procedure for skin cancer.
The reaction from the chemicals oxygen and the blue light is what destroys the precancerous or cancerous skin cells.
Photodynamic therapy pdt is a two stage treatment that combines light energy with a drug photosensitizer designed to destroy cancerous and precancerous cells after light activation.
Pdt is usually done as an outpatient procedure meaning you won t have to stay in the hospital but is sometimes combined with surgery chemotherapy or other anti cancer drugs or radiation therapy.
More commonly known as photodynamic therapy pdt blue light therapy works often as well as surgery or radiation therapy.
The most common types of skin cancer basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are highly curable when they are diagnosed and treated early.
Pdt can be an alternative to surgery or radiation for several kinds of cancer.
Photodynamic or blue light therapy at university of iowa hospitals clinics is helping dermatologists ward off skin cancer in patients with actinic keratoses.
Blue light therapy is an fda approved non invasive phototherapy treatment for acne.
The exception to this may be photodynamic therapy on high risk areas for cancer.
Your doctor will focus a special blue or red light onto the area of.
Photosensitizers are activated by a specific wavelength of light energy usually from a laser.
Also known as solar keratoses these scaly bumps range in size from pinhead to one inch and appear primarily in sun exposed areas on the face ears head lips forearms and back of.
Sun exposure tanning beds depressed immune system radiation exposure and certain viral infections are risk factors for skin cancer.
Your dermatologist will apply a chemical solution to the affected areas and subsequently expose that same area to blue light.
Blue light therapy treatment is usually a very quick process and is almost always done as an outpatient procedure.
Blue light treatment is a non invasive procedure.
Light in the blue wavelength is used to kill acne causing bacteria.
A relatively easy procedure blue light therapy has successfully treated multiple conditions including cancer actinic keratosis a type of superficial skin cancer and acne.
The photosensitizer is nontoxic until it is activated by light.
The kind of light used depends on the type of cancer and where it is located in the body.