British scientists have come up with a revolutionary technique that is already being used to diagnose and treat certain types of cancer. It is called Photodynamic Therapy (PDT), it is already licensed to treat cancers of the skin, head, neck and the esophagus and, unlike chemotherapy, it has a limited number of side-effects. What is more, in certain cases it can be even more effective than standard therapy. By all indications, PDT is indeed a revolutionary treatment that uses light to activate certain tumor-killing drugs and to diagnose cancer much more rapidly and effectively than the traditional biopsies.

In the case of skin cancer, for example, the treatment goes like this: a cream containing the drug is applied onto the affected area, then a special light is shone onto it, which makes the drug generate a type of oxygen compound that has been proven to destroy tumors without causing any damage to the underlying structure of the surrounding tissue.

This means that scarring is greatly reduced and the patients only reported feeling a gentle, tingling sensation as the treatment takes effect. If the tumor is inside the body (such as a breast tumor, for example), the drug is administered via a medicine that is absorbed by the tumor cells from the bloodstream. The same technique is used to diagnose and locate tumors quickly and precisely, so that a patient who resorts to this procedure can be diagnosed and begin treatment within one day.

Although the new technique has been used by several clinics in the UK for a few years now, it only gained massive exposure in recent months, when eminent British cancer specialists such as Sir Walter Bodmer, Head of the Cancer and Immunogenetics Laboratory at the University of Oxford, gave it their seal of approval.

"In those parts of the body where we know it works - on the skin, in the head and neck and down the esophagus, it [PDT] certainly seems superior to existing treatments. It is less damaging to the patients and very effective", he said. In the meantime, the British government has commissioned an official review of PDT's effectiveness, which could see this revolutionary diagnosis and treatment method turn mainstream in a matter of months.