Recent progress on photodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy

Noninvasive treatments for terminal cancer patients constitute a new trend in tumor treatment. Therefore, phototherapy, including photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT), has attracted considerable interest. Light and a photosensitizer (PS) are employed in both treatment methods. For PDT, the PS generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) when exposed to light, whereas for PTT, the PS generates heat. In this regard, the systematic design of new PSs has become an active area of phototherapy research in an effort to solve the problems associated with conventional PSs. In the past decade, activatable and heavy-atom-free PSs have become significant research areas. Therefore, we discuss our recent contributions to the PDT and PTT in this account.