High-dose vs medium-dose treating psoriasis plaques

Asawanonda et al (2000a) reported on a dose-response study involving 13 patients with psoriasis plaques.  Varying numbers of excimer pulses were delivered at fixed doses with a range of fluences from sub-erythemogenic to supra-erythemogenic.  Lesions remained in remission with as few as a single high fluence (up to 16 times the minimal erythemogenic dose (MED)) treatment, whereas recurrences occurred in lesions treated with multiple doses of lower fluences shortly after cessation of treatment.  The duration of remissions seen with the high fluences was 6.5 months.  Based on these findings, the authors stated that “[w]e speculate that the ideal approach for localized, limited plaques may well be single or at most a few ‘high-dose’ treatments, whereas for widespread psoriasis several ‘medium-dose’ treatments may make more sense”.