Approaches toward combining photodynamic therapy with pharmaceuticals that alter vascular microenvironment.

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy has been widely replaced by antiangiogenesis agents for the first-line therapy for exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). There is a strong basis for predicting that a combination of photodynamic therapy and antiangiogenesis agents may address the relative disadvantages of each. By improving the rates of response, photodynamic therapy has the potential to reduce the frequency with which intravitreal injections of antiangiogenesis agents are required. Antiangiogenesis agents may augment the activity of photodynamic therapy by inhibiting its counterproductive upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor. Clinical studies of this combination are being advanced in both AMD and in the treatment of malignancies.