BACKGROUND: Ultraviolet (UV) radiation phototherapy has been used for decades in the management of common skin diseases. On the other hand, UV radiation is a complete carcinogen and as a consequence, UV phototherapy is usually not used for the long-term management of children and young adults and in combination with topical or systemic immunosuppressants. PURPOSE: The therapeutic effectiveness of a new UV-free irradiation device in the treatment of patients with atopic hand and/or foot eczema was studied. METHODS: In a single-blinded trial 10 patients with atopic hand and/or foot eczema were treated with a sham irradiation device and with the new developed UV-free irradiation device DermoDyne during the following 4 weeks. All irradiation's lasted 30 min per treatment three times weekly. RESULTS: UV-free irradiation was found to induce a significant clinical improvement of atopic hand and foot eczema (P = 0.0001) in marked contrast to the sham-irradiation (P = 0.39). CONCLUSION: Our studies demonstrate that visible light can be successfully used for the treatment of patients with atopic eczema.
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Krutmann et al. (2005) studied this question.
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