Improvement of tumor localization of photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy and its application for tumor diagnosis.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photodynamic diagnosis of cancer are widely used in clinical fields. These are performed using photosensitizers. Many metalloporphyrin-related compounds have been developed as photosensitizers for use in PDT, and these tumor localization ability have been improved in recent research. Moreover, the precursor of porphyrin 5-aminolevulinic acid is used in fluorescence diagnosis using its tumor localization ability. In this review, these applications of photosensitizers in cancer therapy and diagnosis are summarized.