Photodynamic Therapy in the Treatment of Bladder Cancer: Past Challenges and Current Innovations

There are limited treatment options for patients with recurrent non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. In this report, we will talk about the history of photodynamic therapy; although it showed encouraging therapeutic results, it was largely abandoned due to toxicity or bystander effects on normal cells. Monoclonal antibody-conjugates represent an emerging therapeutic approach for malignancies that improves upon tumor specificity. The use of a monoclonal antibody-photosensitizer conjugate is a more selective method of delivering light therapy and has been termed “photoimmunotherapy”, which we will discuss in the last part of this report. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been effective for bladder cancer; however, it has been complicated by toxicities due to nonspecific treatment of the urothelium. Photoimmunotherapy is a more targeted form of PDT that allows for selective tumor cell death with fewer toxicities.