Successful monotherapy of severe and intractable atopic dermatitis by photopheresis.
BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic atopic dermatitis can become unresponsive to standard immunosuppressive therapy and thus pose a serious therapeutic problem. OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to evaluate the therapeutic effectiveness of photopheresis in the management of patients with severe and intractable atopic dermatitis. METHODS: Photopheresis was used as monotherapy in patients (n = 3) who previously did not respond to treatment with glucocorticosteroids, cyclosporine, phototherapy, or photochemotherapy. Patients were treated at 2-week intervals (total number of treatments = 10). RESULTS: In all patients, photopheresis induced clinical improvement and reduction of elevated serum levels of eosinophil cationic protein and total IgE. Prolongation of the intervals between treatments from 2 to 4 weeks caused worsening in one patient, whereas shortening of treatment-free intervals improved both clinical and laboratory findings. CONCLUSION: These studies indicate that photopheresis may be used as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with severe atopic dermatitis that has become intractable to standard therapeutic modalities.[1]References
- Successful monotherapy of severe and intractable atopic dermatitis by photopheresis. Richter, H.I., Billmann-Eberwein, C., Grewe, M., Stege, H., Berneburg, M., Ruzicka, T., Krutmann, J. J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. (1998) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg