Abstract
Cancer is a mass of abnormal and detrimental cells in a given part of the body. The main
elucidated cause is the uncontrolled growth and proliferation of those cells after the corruption
of the physiological processes responsible for normal development and functioning.
The advantage of adjuvant therapy, therapy done after surgery, is to prevent
the occurring of symptoms and not necessarily to make sure of the integrity of mechanisms
that are crucial in preventing abnormal cell proliferation such cell cycle regulation,
cell death, which include autophagy, necrosis, and apoptosis. The understanding
of dysregulated cell death mechanisms combined with suitable alternative cancer therapies
could lead to novel treatment modalities for cancer. Currently, breast cancer is the
leading occurring cancer in sub-Saharan women after that of the cervix. This potentially
curable condition kills more than half of the diagnosed group, which consists mainly
of females aged between 35 and 49 years and with 77% being in stages III and IV. The
social economic status of populations coupled with the limited access to proper control
strategies and infrastructures in sub-Saharan regions accentuate the burden of the disease.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has shown great potential in treating breast cancer
and even greater therapeutic outcomes can be obtained when combining PDT with other
therapies such as immunotherapy or nanomedicine.