• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 2023

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), in which a photosensitizer (PS), light, and molecular oxygen are essential components, is a non-invasive and highly effective cancer therapeutic method. However, PDT suffers from the penetration limit of light caused by attenuation and scattering of light through tissues constraining its use to skin and endoscopically accessible cancers. Cerenkov luminescence (CL) is defined as the light illuminated when charged particles move in a dielectric medium at a velocity greater than the phase velocity of light. It is known that medical radioisotopes in preclinical and clinical settings have enough energy to generate CL, and lately, CL has been exploited as an excitation source for PDT without external light illumination. This review introduces state of the art studies of radioisotope-based PDT for cancer, in which radioisotopes are utilized as a light source.