Called photodynamic therapy, the technique represents part of medicine's continuing quest for treatments that target tumors while sparing the rest of the body from unpleasant side effects. Though far more common in Europe, this light-based therapy is gaining proponents in the United States, where it has long been approved for treating certain lung and skin cancers.
Loren is among the researchers who seek to expand its use. He is participating in a University of Virginia-led effort to gain approval to use it on bile-duct tumors.
Separately, researchers at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia are using the technique to combat prostate cancer in lab animals.
Correa, 54, of Langhorne, feels like something of a lab animal herself. She is among just a handful of U.S. patients who have gotten the treatment for bile-duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma), and at first she was a little hesitant.
So were her two sons, both in their 20s.
"They asked me if I was going to glow in the dark," she said, before undergoing the first of several treatments last month.
No, but the therapy does have one significant side effect:
The medicine that makes the tumor cells sensitive to light has a similar effect on the rest of the body. Regular cells excrete the medicine more quickly than do cancer cells, yet the kind of drug Correa received still had a fairly long impact. She would have to stay away from bright light for several weeks, or else suffer a bad sunburn.
So when Correa arrived at Jefferson for her first encounter with the laser, she wore a floppy, wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses.
Grim prognosis
The bile duct plays a key role in digestion, ferrying bile salts from the liver to the small intestine, where they help break down fats.
