Review on Photodynamic Therapy Combined with T-Cell Immunotherapy for Recurrent or Metastatic Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: Mechanisms, Challenges, and Future Directions.

opinion statementNasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) exhibits a distinct geographical prevalence, with 75% of global cases concentrated in Southeast Asia and southern China. Clinically, its diagnosis and treatment are confronted with two core challenges: approximately 75% of patients are diagnosed at the locally advanced stage, and 20%-30% of patients eventually experience treatment failure due to disease recurrence or distant metastasis.​Despite the fact that modern medicine has developed conventional salvage treatment regimens for recurrent /metastatic Nasopharyngeal carcinoma(R/M NPC), including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery, these approaches still fail to achieve optimal disease control. This is primarily attributed to the biological characteristics of the tumor and limitations in therapeutic technologies, making the selection of treatment regimens a major clinical challenge.​In recent years, T-cell immunotherapy has emerged as a promising new direction for NPC treatment. However, it lacks support from large-scale phase III clinical trial data, and its efficacy stability and safety have not yet met clinical expectations. The advent of photodynamic therapy (PDT) has brought a new opportunity for NPC treatment. Although PDT has inherent drawbacks such as insufficient reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, uneven photosensitizer distribution, and low delivery efficiency, it can significantly enhance the anti-tumor activity of T cells, laying a solid foundation for combination therapy.​Therefore, this article will synthesize the available data to date and explore the potential of combining T-cell immunotherapy with PDT for the treatment of R/M NPC.