Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been investigated over the past three decades and is currently an approved therapeutic modality for skin cancer, the treatment of superficial bladder, early lung and advanced esophageal cancers, and age-related macular degeneration in a number of countries. In PDT, the absorption of light by a chromophore generates cytotoxic species such as reactive singlet oxygen, leading to irreversible destruction of the treated tissue. The measurement of the singlet oxygen quantum yield is an important determinant used to evaluate the efficiency of new photodynamic therapy agents developed in the laboratory, to screen potential photosensitizers in aqueous media.The singlet oxygen quantum yield is a quantitative measurement of the efficiency in which photosensitizers are able to use energy, in the form of light, to convert oxygen in the ground state to the reactive species singlet oxygen useful in photodynamic therapy. Singlet oxygen quantum yields of photosensitizers differ when measured in different solvents. The majority of the existing quantum yield values found in literature for various photosensitizers are documented with the sensitizers in organic solvents though values in aqueous media are more valuable for actual applications. Determination of accurate and precise quantum yield values in aqueous solution is a much more difficult problem than in organic media. Problems in aqueous solution arise primarily from the physicochemical properties of singlet oxygen in water. Singlet oxygen has a much shorter lifetime in water than it does in organic solvents, causing challenges with respect to quantitative detection of singlet oxygen.The ensuing pages are an attempt to explore the theory and document the procedures developed to provide the accurate measurement of singlet oxygen in aqueous media. Details of this experimental method and singlet oxygen quantum yield results of new compounds relative to established photosensitizers will be presented.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-1092 |
| Date | 01 January 2004 |
| Creators | Grabow, Wade William |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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