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Should PUVA Be Abandoned?

List of authors.
  • Klaus Wolff, M.D.

Severe, widespread psoriasis is a devastating skin disease that can disrupt professional, social, and private life. The effectiveness of photochemotherapy with oral methoxsalen (psoralen) and ultraviolet A radiation (PUVA)1 in inducing and maintaining the remission of severe psoriasis has been amply documented1,2 and confirmed in large-scale cooperative clinical trials in both the United States3 and Europe.4 PUVA induces remission of psoriasis through repeated, controlled phototoxic reactions that occur only when psoralens are photoactivated by ultraviolet A. Neither the drug nor ultraviolet A is effective alone.5 Given the penetration characteristics of ultraviolet A, the absorption of photons is confined to . . .

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Klaus Wolff, M.D.
University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria

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