Abstract::
As a group of heterocyclic macrocycle organic natural compounds occurring universally in animal tissues and
plants, porphyrins are composed of four modified pyrrole subunits. Porphyrin analogues/derivatives possess multiple
biochemical properties because of their unique structures and have been extensively investigated in cancer treatment.
Studies have shown that porphyrins and their derivatives have the ability to locate in tumor cells in a variety of human
cancers, and these compounds not only exhibit potent therapeutic effects as photodynamic agents but also show promising
properties in medicinal imaging, such as MRI, photoacoustic imaging, fluorescence imaging and PET/SPECT imaging.
This paper reviews the recent reports of porphyrin derivatives as therapeutic agents used in tumor therapies, such as
sonodynamic therapy, photodynamic therapy and radiotherapy, as well as imaging agents for multimodality tumor
imaging. The limitations of porphyrin-based compounds in tumor treatments and future prospects are also summarized.
Automatic cancer tissue detection using multispectral photoacoustic imaging
