Skin cancer is considered a risky worldwide disease. Traditional treatments have several weaknesses, necessitating the creation of more effective treatments. In this case, photodynamic therapy and nanotechnology were used to demonstrate their therapeutic efficacy as combinational approaches in treating different types of skin cancer. In this review, we will discuss the photoexcitation mechanism of PDT, its cell destruction capability, and give a comprehensive outlook of the different photosensitizer types. Also, light sources and their properties will be addressed. Further, we will present some of the nanoparticles used as delivery systems in the skin and show their ideal characteristics for the effective delivery of drugs for skin cancer therapy. Finally, the review aims to cover topics from the most recent reported preclinical studies and clinical trials about nanoparticles loaded with different drugs and triggered with PDT to treat different types of skin cancer. The review will demonstrate that photodynamic therapy and nanoparticles have contributed to the great evolution of skin cancer treatment by having an effective therapeutic efficiency in treating different types of skin cancer such as melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and actinic keratosis (AK) which shows the need of using them instead of traditional technologies.
Keywords: Cytotoxicity; Nanoparticles; Photodynamic therapy (PDT); Phototoxicity; Skin cancer.
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