We found no evidence that treatment of port-wine stains with the flash-lamp-pumped pulsed-dye laser in early childhood is more effective than treatment at a later age.

Using objective color measurements, we observed significant redarkening of port-wine stains at long-term follow-up after pulsed-dye-laser therapy. Patients should be informed about the possibility of redarkening before beginning treatment.

Radiotherapy with very high energy electrons has been investigated for a couple of decades as an effective approach to improve dose distribution compared to conventional photon-based radiotherapy, with the recent intriguing potential of high dose-rate irradiation. Its practical application to treatment has been hindered by the lack of hospital-scale accelerators. High-gradient laser-plasma accelerators (LPA) have been proposed as a possible platform, but no experiments so far have explored the feasibility of a clinical use of this concept. We show the results of an experimental study aimed at assessing dose deposition for deep seated tumours using advanced irradiation schemes with an existing LPA source. Measurements show control of localized dose deposition and modulation, suitable to target a volume at depths in the range from 5 to 10 cm with mm resolution. The dose delivered to the target was up to 1.6 Gy, delivered with few hundreds of shots, limited by secondary components of the LPA accelerator. Measurements suggest that therapeutic doses within localized volumes can already be obtained with existing LPA technology, calling for dedicated pre-clinical studies.

Our model suggests that individual prediction of treatment outcome and the required number of treatments is possible in an early stage of FPPDL treatment of PWS, in theory already after one single laser treatment.