Asan Medical Center, Park Do-Hyun, Professor of Internal Medicine at Seoul Asan Medical Center, brightens a hope of curing pancreatic cancer

Early diagnosis on pancreatic cancer is more important than on any other cancer. However, pancreatic cancer is difficult to be diagnosed in its early stage due to following reasons. Little is known about the etiopathogenetic mechanism. Surrounded by other organs and locateddeep inside an abdomen, pancreas is difficult to be diagnosed. Thus, the symptoms of pancreatic disease are not distinguishable from digestive disorders. It is also difficult to cure pancreatic cancer. The resection is the only cure with a 5-year survival rate of 10.8%. The operation is limited due to its location. Also, medications are inevitable since digestive fluid and insulin are less produced as a result of partial resection of pancreas and duodenum. Therefore, pancreatic cancer specialists are grapplingto minimize the amount of resection by only removing cancer. For a possible approach, Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is being spotlighted as a “light of life”. Photodynamic therapy is a method of injecting a photosensitizer with a high absorption coefficient into a pancreatic cancer patient and killing cancer cells with infrared rays by using endoscopy or laparoscopy. In this regard as a new approach, Professor Park is currently developing 'implantable micro LED fusion technology for selective photodynamic therapy of malignant tumors.” The patients are waiting for a day the new approach to be applied.