Phototherapy in the Treatment of Acne Vulgaris
July 2008 | Volume 7 | Issue 7 | Original Article | 627 | Copyright © July 2008
Nevien A. Sami PhD, Abeer T. Attia PhD, Ashraf M. Badawi
Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of pulsed dye laser (PDL), intense pulsed light (IPL) and light-emitting diode (LED) phototherapy for the treatment of moderate to severe acne vulgaris.
Methods: Forty-five patients with moderate to severe acne were randomly divided into 3 equal groups. Group 1 was treated with a PDL, group 2 was treated with IPL, and group 3 was treated with a blue-red combination LED. Treatment was continued until a ≥90% clearance of patient lesions was achieved. Clinical assessments were conducted before starting treatment, at 1 month as a midpoint evaluation, and after the final treatment session.
Results: Patients treated with the PDL reached a ≥90% clearance of their inflammatory lesions after a mean of 4.1±1.39 sessions, while patients treated with IPL required a mean of 6±2.05 sessions. Patients treated with the LED required a mean of 10±3.34 sessions. At the mid-point evaluation, the percent reduction in acne lesions treated with the PDL was 90% or more, in cases of IPL and the LED, the percent reductions were 41.7% and 35.3%, respectively. Laser and light phototherapy sessions were well tolerated with minimal adverse events experienced as being mild and usually self-limiting.
Conclusions: The encouraging results of the present study contributes evidence of phototherapy as useful therapeutic option for treatment of moderate to severe acne, and validates further studies to evaluate treatments with a larger number of patients and for a longer period of follow-up.