Tiny electronic lights embedded in a small, flexible bandage may provide a new way to zap tumor cells in people with skin cancer.

Pointing the way: Light therapy bandage Credit: Polymertronics

The technology, emerging from two British companies, Polymertronics and Lumicure, harnesses a type of light source known as 'organic' light–emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs are made from semiconducting organic polymers that can convert electrical energy into light and already form the basis for the displays in certain cellular phones and MP3 players. But OLEDs also have many potential nondisplay applications.

One of their main advantages is that, unlike conventional LEDs, OLEDs can be printed onto a wide range of materials, making them an ideal light source for light-emitting bandages. Polymertronics and Lumicure embed OLEDs in flexible plastic strips and pads, respectively.

These light-emitting bandages are designed to be used in conjunction with photodynamic therapy, in which patients with skin cancer receive an anticancer drug that is activated by red light.

At the moment, lamps or lasers supply the light, and the procedure must be performed in a medical center and can be painful because of heat. The new technology offers a convenient way for people to treat themselves at home.

The idea is for patients to rub a cream containing the anticancer drug into the area of skin cancer and then attach the pad or strip for several hours. This allows the OLEDs to emit red light at levels that don't generate too much heat but that still activate the drug to selectively kill cancer cells.

“It's a different way of delivering the light; that's what it's all about,” says Stephen Clemmet, chief executive officer of Polymertronics.

Clemmet presented his company's light-emitting bandage technology this April in London at a meeting entitled 'Polymer Electronics—Towards the Future'. The Oxfordshire-based company is printing square arrays of individually controllable OLEDs, each just four millimeters in size, onto flexible plastic strips. This setup means that the pattern of light-emitting OLEDs can be finely controlled to match the shape of the skin cancer, targeting the red light solely to the cancerous area.

Clemmet presented laboratory findings suggesting that Polymertronics's technology can kill cancer cells. The company now intends to conduct clinical trials with the aim of launching the product within two years. Lumicure, a Dundee-based spin-off from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, has already conducted a pilot clinical trial of its pad. It is now in the process of obtaining regulatory approval and intends to launch the device later this year.

Michael Unger, of Thomas Jefferson University and the Fox Chase Cancer Center, both in Philadelphia, says he's not yet convinced of the 'utility' of these kinds of light-emitting bandages.

Both companies say that their light bandages can also be adapted to treat other skin conditions, such as acne.