Selectivity and anti-tumor immune elevation by vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy of mouse orthotopic bladder cancer model.

Vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (VTP) with WST11 is a non-surgical tumor ablation approach that is currently being tested in a phase 3 clinical trial for the treatment of upper tract urothelial cancer. WST11-VTP utilizes illumination, leading to hypoxia, and production of free radicals followed by coagulative necrosis. Here, we tested the hypothesis that WST11-VTP can safely ablate muscle-invasive MB-49- luc bladder tumors in an orthotopic mouse model while sparing the surrounding normal tissue.