PUVA-Therapy for Alopecia Areata

Successful treatment of resistant alopecia areata with a phototoxic dose of ultraviolet A after topical 8‐methoxypsoralen application

“…Similar to Mohamed et al (20), we found that slight erythema was observed in most patients with AA for a few days because of the phototoxic dose and painful burning was seen in patients who were not careful enough to protect their scalp from sunlight after PUVA exposure. Similar side effects are reported with both conventional topical PUVA (13,16,19) and systemic PUVA (15).…”

“…In previous studies on conventional topical PUVA, the mean cumulative UVA doses in some reported studies were also higher than that in our work, e.g. 505 J/cm 2 (13), 260 J/cm 2 (16) and 352.4 J/cm 2 (19). Thus, topical PUVA using phototoxic UVA doses results in a remarkably less total cumulative UVA doses denoting a higher safety profile for this treatment modality with less possible long-term side effects especially carcinogenic ones.…”

“…Treatment modalities include topical corticosteroids (7), topical minoxidil (6), topical irritants (8), topical tacrolimus (9), systemic steroids (10), systemic cyclosporine (11), and phototherapy (12). Weissmann et al (13) reported success with topical psoralen and ultraviolet A (PUVA) light in five patients with AA. Since then, there have been several studies reporting success rates of PUVA therapy in patients with AA (14)(15)(16).…”

Effects of Psoralen‐UV‐A‐Turban in Alopecia Areata

“…Systemic PUVA was suggested first by Weissmann et al 3 They subsequently used topical 8‐MOP and artificial UV‐A to successfully treat five patients with alopecia areata 3, 4 . Further studies 5 showed similar effectiveness of oral 8‐MOP plus local or whole body UV‐A irradiation and local 8‐MOP plus local UV‐A.…”

Advances in the management of alopecia areata

“…Recurrence of hair loss was noted only in five cases after a period of 10 months to 2 years of treatment. 53 On the other hand, another study showed unfavorable results of PUVA therapy in refractory cases prior to starting PUVA. The effective success rate was at best 6.3% for AA partialis, 12.5% for AT and 13.3% for AU.…”