Could LED's Help Treat Skin Cancer?

It sounds counterintuitive--that light, so often considered the culprit in skin cancer, might also play a role in its treatment. But researchers at the University of California at Irvine are using light-emitting diodes to improve a cancer therapy that they hope to use to treat skin cancer.

The technique is called photodynamic therapy (PDT), and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat both esophageal and lung cancer. Light-absorbing chemicals are injected into tumors and then exposed to light, which prompts the chemicals to generate oxygen radicals that destroy cancer cells.