Tel Aviv- London- Researchers, in a groundbreaking discovery, developed a photodynamic treatment which targets and terminates early stage prostate cancer tumors within 90 min.

The treatment, discovered by two Weizmann Institute professors, has been developed and tested at the Steba biotech in Luxembourg. The treatment currently is being used in Israel for a trial testing fifty patients—the treatment has already been approved in Mexico last January. The treatment is completed within 90 minutes and without any usage of radiation or chemotherapy.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging shows that patients who underwent the modern day treatment have displayed a complete cancer-free prostate within a week from taking the treatment.

Senior Israeli urologist from the Tel Aviv University and head of Ramat Aviv Medical Centre’s Urology department Professor Jack Baniel said that the treatment targets cancerous cells with precision without causing the gland tissues any affliction.

Using ultrasound, doctors insert conductors into the body, close to blood vessels feeding the tumor. Illuminating optic fibers are placed inside the conductors. A drug called Tookad that makes light toxic to living tissue is injected into the patient’s blood. When doctors light up the optic fibers inside the patient, the cells touched by light die instantly.

“The patient might be cured, he might not be even cured of his disease but he might have a remedy for 20-30 years which is exactly what we need. Most of these patients are 60-70 years old men, not all of them healthy, and if you grant them around 10-20 years with good health and without side effects, which is the main goal, then we’ve done a great achievement and we’ve done a revolution,” said Prof. Jack Baniel.

Phase III trials including 80 patient trials proved successful in Latin America with almost no side effects.

Trials are also currently taking place in New York and the developers are confident it won’t be long before the treatment becomes widespread.