2011 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Photodynamic therapy : A new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis

Research Project

Project/Area Number	22890214
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Orthopaedic surgery
Research Institution	Hamamatsu University
Principal Investigator	KAGEYAMA Yasunori 浜松大学, 保健医療学部・理学療法学科, 教授 (50324348)
Project Period (FY)	2010 – 2011
Keywords	関節リウマチ / 光線力学療法 / PDT / 5-aminolevurinic acid
Research Abstract	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.

(3 results)