Photodynamic therapy for pancreatic and biliary tract carcinoma

Patients with non-resectable pancreatic and biliary tract cancer (cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder cancer) have a dismal outlook with conventional palliative therapies, with a median survival of 3-9 months and a 5 year survival of less than 3%. Surgery is the only curative treatment but is appropriate in less than 20% of cases, and even then is associated with a 5-year survival of less than 30%. Although most applications of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in gastroenterology have been on lesions of the luminal gut, there is increasing experimental and clinical evidence for its efficacy in cancers of the pancreas and biliary tract. Our group has carried out the only clinical study of PDT in pancreatic carcinoma reported to date, and showed that PDT is feasible for local debulking of pancreatic cancer. PDT has also been used with palliative intent in patients with unresectable cholangiocarcinoma, with patients treated with stenting plus PDT reporting improvements in cholestasis, quality of life and survival compared with historical or randomized controls treated with stenting alone. Further controlled studies are needed to establish the influence of PDT and chemotherapy on the survival and quality of life of patients with pancreatic and biliary tract carcinoma.