Twice‐ vs. thrice‐weekly MPD PUVA in psoriasis: a randomized‐controlled efficacy study

Abstract

The treatment of psoriasis patients with twice- or thrice-weekly PUVA in this study was equally effective, the number of sessions required and the cumulative doses of UVA were lower with the twice-weekly regimen.

Efficacy of Psoralen UV‐A therapy vs. Narrowband UV‐B therapy in chronic plaque psoriasis: a systematic literature review

“…Of these, 670 were eliminated by reading the title or the abstract and 74 after reading the article. A total of 29 randomized controlled trials were finally selected 6–34 . The detailed flowchart describing both selection process and reasons for exclusion is displayed in Fig.…”

“…To increase the power to detect potential differences we combined the results from randomized controlled studies with those extracted from therapeutic trials in which the control arm used PUVA or NB‐UVB (Table 1) and from studies evaluating a relevant parameter (initial dose, increments…) (Table 2). A total of 18 publications concerning NB‐UVB, 6–23 and eight concerning PUVA were finally included in the analysis 24–31 …”

“…One intra‐individual study compared the effect of the number of weekly PUVA sessions on clearance rate 27 . A total of 28 patients were randomized to receive PUVA either twice or three times weekly on each body side.…”

A review of phototherapy protocols for psoriasis treatment

“…However, the cumulative UVA dose of the twiceweekly regimen was considerably lower, 142.5 versus 241.4 J/cm 2 in the three-times weekly group. 66 A recent randomized controlled study of darker skin types proved the same in this group of patients, demonstrating that twice-weekly phototherapy maintains PUVA efficacy and may improve the riskbenefit ratio. 67 The use of maintenance PUVA is common despite limited data regarding the risks and benefits of this approach.…”

“…Reducing PUVA frequency to twice weekly in lightskinned patients does not compromise PUVA efficacy. [63][64][65][66] A randomized half-body controlled study of twice versus 3-times weekly PUVA involving 28 patients showed no difference in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) score after 25 sessions, 92.9% for twice weekly and 94.8% for thrice weekly. However, the cumulative UVA dose of the twiceweekly regimen was considerably lower, 142.5 versus 241.4 J/cm 2 in the three-times weekly group.…”