Psoriasis UVB therapy at home both safe and effective

Ultraviolet B phototherapy carried out at home by psoriasis patients is as safe and effective as UVB therapy given in an outpatient department, according to new research published in to-days British Medical Journal. What's more, patients prefer it.

It's known that the chronic, inflammatory skin condition responds well to treatment with ultraviolet B light. However, to be effective, patients have to attend an outpatient department for treatment three times a week for eight to ten weeks.

Because of this, and the limited availability of equipment, few patients in the UK are treated this way. Dermatologists also think home treatment is riskier and less effective.

However, Dutch researchers decided to investigate this. They recruited 196 psoriasis patient volunteers from fourteen dermatology clinics in the Netherlands.

Patients were randomly assigned to be given UVB light therapy at home or at their usual dermatology clinic.

UVB phototherapy treatment at home was found to be both effective and safe and was as good as the treatment given to the outpatient group at clearing the disease. The occurrence of short-time side effects was also similar in both groups.

When questioned, more patients rated home treatment as "excellent" (42%) compared with the outpatient group (23%).

The study concluded that home UVB phototherapy treatment was a good alternative to outpatient UVB phototherapy.

In an accompanying editorial in the BMJ, Professor Alex Anstey from the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, Wales said it was time to reassess conventional treatments and health trusts should work with local dermatologists to improve access to UVB.

This article was published on Fri 8 May 2009