Photodynamic therapy : A new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis

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Because the main focus of rheumatoid arthritis(RA) is synovial membranes, synovectomy has been carried out for the treatment of RA. Now we performed basic research to aim to make application of photodynamic therapy(PDT), which is relatively few damage to the human body, to synovectomy in patients with RA. We performed PDT to cultured synovial cells from RA using ATX-S10(Na), Photofrin, and 5-aminolevurinic acid(5-ALA) as photosensitizers. The PDT effect of all photosensitizers was obtained. Type II collagen-induced arthritis of mice is an animal model of RA. In this model, the fluorescence of the joints under the excitation of 405 nm laser was measured at 2-3 hours after administration of Photofrin or 5-ALA. Although the fluorescence was detected in the all joints, the significant difference in fluorescence intensity between in arthritic joints and in non-arthritic joints was not seen. The application of PDT by using Photofrin and 5-ALA to synovectomy in the experimental animal model has been considered to have some problems to solve.