Laser technologies in treatment of patients with secondary lymphostasis of lower extremities

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), matured as a feasible medical technology in the 1980s at several institutions throughout the world, is a ternary treatment for cancer involving three key components: a photosensitizer, light, and tissue oxygen. It is also being investigated for treatment of psoriasis and acne, and is an approved treatment for wet macular degeneration. A photosensitizer is a chemical compound that can be excited by light of a specific wavelength. This excitation uses visible or near-infrared light. In photodynamic therapy, either a photosensitizer or the metabolic precursor of one is administered to the patient. The tissue to be treated is exposed to light suitable for exciting the photosensitizer. Usually, the photosensitizer is excited from a ground singlet state to an excited singlet state. It then undergoes intersys-tem crossing to a longer-lived excited triplet state. Singlet oxygen is a very aggressive chemical species and will very rapidly react with any nearby biomolecules