Laser Light Therapy to treat Cancer

Laser light therapy or Photodynamic therapy is one of the effective and recent modes of treatment for curing cancer. This therapy uses a red laser and a light sensitive drug for destroying cancerous cells. The main advantage of having laser light therapy is that it does not destroy the normal healthy tissues and cells which happen in case of Chemotherapy. Thus, Laser light therapy has emerged out as a powerful treatment for those who suffer from oral and throat cancers.

An amazing fact about laser therapy is that it kills only the dangerous cancerous cells retaining the normal body tissues and cells. Before the patient is treated with the laser light therapy, he or she is given a light sensitive drug known as porfirmer sodium. This drug normally passes through the healthy cells where as blocks and collects in the cancerous cells. A two or three days after the assignment of the drug, the doctor observes the accumulated areas and exposes them to the red laser, there by killing those specific cancerous as well as precancerous cells.

In case of photodynamic therapy, the red laser light concentrates on the particular area by activating the photofrin for producing the toxic oxygen for killing the disease cells, without harming the adjacent healthy cells.

The patient is subjected to laser therapy under anesthesia. Those who are with advanced stages of cancer may require further treatment like radiation and surgeries even after the laser therapy is given. Laser light therapy seems to treat certain types of cancer like precancerous skin conditions known as actinic keratosis, esophageal cancer, lung cancer and the researches are still going on to bring out the effectiveness in treating other forms of cancers also.