# In situ PEDSy and light delivery platform for Intracavitory Photodynamic Therapy

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2022 · $550,360

## Abstract

This translational project will develop, evaluate, and clinically test an integrated PDT Explicit 
Dosimetry System (PEDSy) and light delivery platform for quantitative measurement and delivery of 
photodynamic therapy (PDT) dose with feedback control. The system will include two key 
components: hardware for in situ PDT dosimetry and light source tracking in real-time, 
and software for treatment monitoring of light distribution throughout the pleural cavity 
during PDT of pleural-involving malignancy. The hardware is composed of a multi-channel 
instrument that can be used in the clinic during PDT to measure PDT dose generated by the PDT 
treatment light using the explicit dosimetry of light fluence rate and photosensitizer 
concentration. Here, the immediate clinical translation is to monitor the PDT dose at multiple 
sites in patients undergoing pleural PDT for mesothelioma, which has shown significant 
clinical efficacy in clinical trials to date. Fiber-optic-based fluorescence and diffuse 
reflectance spectra will also be collected at the same locations to calculate the tissue optical 
property correction factors for photosensitizer drug concentration. An IR navigation system and a 
3D scanner will be developed to track the light source position in real-time as well as determining 
the geometrical shape of pleural surface for PDT treatment in real-time. The software is composed 
of a GPU-based Monte Carlo simulation for light fluence rate distribution on the entire pleural 
cavity coupled with estimation of the PDT dose distribution along the pleural cavity. The 
outcome of this project will be a novel hardware-software device, PEDSy, that has been 
optimized and rigorously validated under clinically-relevant conditions. We hypothesize that 
quantitative modeling of PDT dose deposition by PEDSy will be significantly more predictive of 
treatment outcome than the current method that employs measurements of light dose without 
incorporating photosensitizer uptakes. Innovation thereby stems from our unique goal to build a 
translatable platform for PDT dosimetry that is based on spatial modeling of comprehensive PDT 
dose, suitable for even sophisticated clinical applications of PDT, and yet generalizable to 
disease at other anatomic sites, such as head and neck and skin cancers. Moreover, we 
conceive that this integrated system for clinical PDT can be commercialized shortly after the end 
of development, and will provide real-time feedback to clinicians for personalization of treatment. 
Thus, this advanced instrument system is significant because it will open the pathway to 
 dosimetry-based real time individualization of PDT that fully accounts for light and 
photosensitizer distributions. Lastly, our preliminary data indicate in situ measurements of PDT 
dose to be a more robust dose metric than the currently used approach which only incorporates 
light dose deposition. Our proposed platform is thereby expected to impact PDT dosimetry 
b...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10439878
- **Project number:** 5R01EB028778-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Mary Potasek
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $550,360
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-20 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10439878

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10439878, In situ PEDSy and light delivery platform for Intracavitory Photodynamic Therapy (5R01EB028778-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10439878. Licensed CC0.

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