Establishment of C-33A cervical carcinoma spheroids on Japanese quail CAM: relevance in assessment of photodiagnosis and photodynamic therapy mediated by hypericin
Cervical cancer is the most common type of cancer in women. The present study aims to establish a reliable model of human cervical cancer microtumours (C-33A) growing on the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) of quail embryos to test the efficacy of anticancer drugs. Cultrex®, an extracellular matrix, was used as a scaffold for C-33A spheroids. Hypericin, a natural perylene quinone, was used in this study as a model photosensitizer for photodiagnosis and photodynamic therapy (PDT). Fluorescence pharmacokinetics were recorded to verify the robustness of the model. The changes in vessel growth parameters were determined after weak PDT (405 nm, 2 min and 285 mW/cm