Nanoparticles loading porphyrin sensitizers in improvement of photodynamic therapy for ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND: Ovarian cancer, the malignant tumor with the highest mortality rate in gynecological tumors, leads to a poor prognosis due to tumor metastasis. At present, the main treatment for ovarian cancer is the combination of cytoreduction surgery and chemotherapy. But the surgery is insufficient to solve the extensive transfer of tumor in the abdominal cavity and a large proportion of ovarian cancer cases have shown resistance to chemotherapy. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a viable treatment option for a wide range of applications, especially in malignant tumors. Porphyrin sensitizers, as the most widely used photosensitive agents, have the following advantages: short photosensitive period and high singlet oxygen production. However, most studies have found that it is difficult to achieve high loading rates of photosensitive agents, thus effective concentration in target tissue is suboptimal and the lethal ability is greatly reduced. In this article, we review several studies that nanoparticles loading porphyrin sensitizers for photodynamic therapy of ovarian cancer. METHODS: We collected relevant literature from PUBMED and reviewed their research content. RESULTS: The application of nanotechnology to PDT in ovarian cancer can reduce the non-specific toxicity of photosensitive agents and increase stability and delivery efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: The combination with nanotechnology can cover the shortcomings of photodynamic therapy, but the specific efficacy still needs a large number of experiments to prove.