Treatment of skin cancer and pre-cancer using topical ALA-PDT—A single hospital experience

SummaryOur hospital (Shanghai Skin Diseases & STD Hospital) started to study 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) in 1996. So far, we have treated 76 cases of skin cancer and pre-cancer using topical ALA-PDT. They included squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), basal cell carcinoma (BCC), Bowen's disease (BD), mammary and extramammary Paget disease, actinic keratosis (AK) and erythroplasia of Queyrat. In this overview article, we would like to present several representative cases and discuss our experience.