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Dear Kevin,

Greetings from Al-Ain the oasis city of the Middle East. Regarding your
above posting the following might be relevent. I could not find any
systematic review or an RCT on your question. I found this paper in Medline.

Lowe NJ. Home ultraviolet phototherapy. Semin Dermatol 1992 Dec;11(4):284-6
Home UV phototherapy is extremely popular with many psoriasis patients.
However, it is essential that they understand the need for regular skin
examination by the dermatologist. Patients with psoriasis are not trained
nor are many nondermatologist physicians to recognize the early features of
many skin cancers, and continued home UV therapy in the presence of such
skin cancers is clearly unwise for the safety of that patient. The use of
UVA tanning salon treatments in the therapy of psoriasis is usually
unsuccessful and is extremely unwise with concomitant psoralen and drug
therapy. This is to be discouraged, and the patient should always be treated
with PUVA in the dermatologist's office with carefully monitored UVA
machines and staff trained in the administration of PUVA phototherapy.

It appears that trained personnel should administer phototherapy under the
supervision of dermatologists at least for psoriasis. When I did a quick
search on the web I found that the Royal Adelaide hospital
(http://www.rah.sa.gov.au/internal/dermatol.htm) adopts a team approach in
the care of skin patients. Their Dermatology Day Care Treatment Center
offers an alternative to inpatient care for patients with severe skin
conditions such as psoriasis and dermatitis. The centre services include
among other things phototherapy. The Day Care Center is staffed by medical
Specialists, specialist nurses as well as experienced physiotherapists and
dietitians. Probably the physiotherapists provide phototherapy under the
guidance of dermatologists.

Hope members of the list will throw more evidence based light on your
question and my posting is of some help.

Cheers & regards,

Badri

Dr.P.Badrinath M.D.,M.Phil.,(Epid) PhD(Cantab)
Clinical Assistant Professor and Epidemiologist,
Department of Community Medicine,
UAE University, PO Box 17666, Al Ain,
United Arab Emirates.
Tel: 00 971 3 7039 652
Fax: 00 971 3 7672022.
http://myprofile.cos.com/badrishanthi

"For an excellent review of the current medical literature, go to Journals
Scan www.uaeu.ac.ae/jscan/index.htm" - BMJ 3rd June 2000,Reviews(Netlines)

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