Cutaneous lupus erythematosus - treatment with pulsed dye laser

Because of its vascular selectivity, the flashlamp-pumped pulsed dye laser (585 nm) is efficacious in the treatment of vascular lesions and is success fully used for the treatment of port-wine stains and haemangiomas in childr en. Based on the encouraging results with these cutaneous vascular disorder s, the cutaneous lesions of patients with lupus erythematosus (LE) have now also been treated with the pulsed dye laser. Cutaneous lesions in lupus er ythematosus are often difficult to treat with readily available local thera peutic methods. Mie report here on a group of 12 patients whose LE lesions were treated with the pulsed dye laser, In 10 patients, the LE was limited to the skin, while two patients had systemic LE (SLE). Even in the two pati ents with SLE, a significant improvement of skin lesions was achieved, Afte r a mean number of 51 laser sessions, a median clearance rate of 70% was at tained for nine patients, In one case, the laser treatment failed to clear the lesions. Two patients did not show any visible improvement of the lesio ns, but pain and itching were significantly reduced, There were few side-ef fects, No prolonged laser-induced scarring occurred and in only two patient s was hyperpigmentation seen, which had resolved completely after 4 and 5 m onths, respectively During a median follow-up of 7 months (range: 3-32 mont hs), only one patient (after a complete clearance of the skin lesions) had a small relapse, In summary, the pulsed dye laser is an effective therapy f or the treatment of superficial skin lesions in LE.