PHOTOCHEMOTHERAPY AND HYPERBARIC OXYGENAT ION IN THE TREATMENT OF PATIENTS WITH DISSEMINATED AND GRAVE FORMS OF PSORIASIS - A CLINICOMORPHOLOGICAL STUDY

A total of 150 patients with disseminated and grave psoriasis forms we re treated. Histologic, histochemical, and histoenzymologic studies re vealed the predominance in involved skin of extramitochondrial energy formation in the presence of depressed tissue respiration and glycolys is coursing mainly according to anaerobic type, which was particularly pronounced in erythrodermic psoriasis, this reflecting tissue hypoxia severity and necessitating hyperbaric oxygenation. Administration of photochemotherapy and hyperbaric oxygenation in such patients helped a ttain a complete clinical remission in 84 % of patients after a shorte r course of treatment as compared to photochemotherapy alone (32.6+/-3 .8 and 40.7 +/-2.4 bed/days, respectively) and reduce the total irradi ation dose from 148.3+/-13.6 to 108.2+/-7.9 J/m2, respectively. Introd uction of this treatment method to practical health service will help prolong the remission duration by 1.5 times and reduce the number of r ecurrences by 25 %.