Abstract: To observe the effect of hypericin-mediated photodynamic therapy on apoptosis of human nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells,the apoptotic and secondary necrotic rate of the nasopharyageal carcinoma(NPC) CNE2 cells induced by hypericin-mediated photodynamic therapy was determined by flow cytometry with Annexin V-PI staining.The apoptotic and secondary necrotic rate of the NPC CNE2 cells after photodynamic therapy significantly increased to 53.08% and 6.77%,and they were higher than those of the controls respectively (P< 0.01),but there was no significance of the apoptotic and secondary necrotic rate between the controls (P> 0.05).Hypericin-mediated photodynamic therapy might obviously trigger the NPC CNE2 cells into apoptosis,which might be one of the mechanisms of hypericin-mediated photodynamic therapy on nasopharyngeal carcinoma.