Light therapy for cancer: Fantastic results and promising hope

Scientists have succeeded in developing a revolutionary cancer treatment that lights up and kills cancer cells, in a breakthrough that may enable surgeons to target the disease more effectively and eliminate it, according to the newspaper "The Guardian".
A European team of engineers, physicists, neurosurgeons, biologists and immunologists from the United Kingdom, Poland and Sweden have joined forces to design the new form of photoimmunotherapy.

Experts believe it is set to become the world's fifth leading cancer treatment after surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.

Light-activated therapy forces cancer cells to glow in the dark, helping surgeons remove more tumors than current techniques, then kills remaining cells within minutes once surgery is complete.

In the world's first trial in mice with glioblastoma, one of the most common and dangerous types of brain cancer, scans revealed that the new treatment lit up even the smallest cancer cells to help surgeons remove them — and then eliminated those that remained.
Trials of the new form of photoimmunotherapy, led by the Institute of Cancer Research in London, showed that the treatment elicited an immune response that could prompt the immune system to target cancer cells in the future, suggesting that it may prevent the return of glioblastoma after surgery.
Researchers are now studying a new treatment for childhood cancerous neuroblastoma.
Study leader Dr. Gabriella Kramer-Maric told the Guardian: “Brain cancers such as glioblastoma can be difficult to treat, and unfortunately there are very few options for patients. She added: "Surgery is difficult because of the location of the tumors, so new ways of seeing the cancer cells to be removed during surgery, and treating the remaining cells afterward, could be of great benefit."
She explained: “It appears our study A novel photoimmunotherapy using a combination of fluorescent and protein markers and near-infrared light can identify and treat remnants of glioblastoma cells in mice. In the future, we hope to use this approach to treat human tumors, and possibly other cancers as well.”

A promising treatment for breast cancer

The treatment combines a special fluorescent dye with a compound that targets the cancer. In an experiment conducted on mice, this combination was shown to significantly improve the vision of cancer cells during surgery, and when subsequently activated by near-infrared light, it produces an anti-tumor effect.