Jornal de Técnicas Analíticas e Bioanalíticas

Abstrato

An Evidence Scoping Review of Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) in the Treatment of Cancers

Menon Devidas

In this invited paper, we applied standard methods of evidence synthesis and critical appraisal to summarize the current state of clinical evidence on PDT for the treatment of different types of cancers. A total of 266 studies spanning 11,427 patients and 34 different types of cancer were reviewed. Forty-four were comparative and 222 were non-comparative. The majority of comparative studies did not assess PDT versus conventional therapy. Therefore, it was not possible to determine the incremental benefit of treatment with PDT. Most of the non-comparative studies involved small, mixed patient populations and short follow-up periods. Consequently, the quality of evidence accumulated to date was considered to be low. Well-defined, prospective, comparative trials of PDT, alone, versus conventional therapies are needed in order to determine its clinical effectiveness.