Does imiquimod pretreatment optimize 308-nm excimer laser (UVB) therapy in psoriasis patients?

ABSTRACT:

Background/purpose

Psoriasis continues to be a debilitating skin disease affecting 1-3% of the United States population. Although the effectiveness of several current biologic therapies have described this pathology as a IL-23, TNF-a and Th17-mediated disease, less invasive approaches are still in use and in need of refinement. One of these is the usage of narrow band-UVB (NB-UVB) therapy to deplete specifically intra-epidermal CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ cells to clear psoriatic plaques.

Aims/objectives

In order to improve NB-UVB therapy, we sought to determine whether skin pre-treatment with the TLR7 agonist imiquimod (IMQ) would help increase the efficiency of the former at resolving psoriatic plaques.

Materials and methods

Eucerin^® Original Moisturizing Lotion

SUBMITTER: Tacastacas JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5505796 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature