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Is the pain of topical photodynamic therapy with methyl aminolevulinate any different from that with 5‐aminolaevulinic acid?
Author(s) -
Ibbotson Sally H.,
Valentine Ronan,
Hearn Ross
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
photodermatology, photoimmunology and photomedicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.736
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1600-0781
pISSN - 0905-4383
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0781.2012.00684.x
Subject(s) - photodynamic therapy , medicine , visual analogue scale , dermatology , cohort , prodrug , basal cell carcinoma , surgery , basal cell , pharmacology , chemistry , organic chemistry
Summary Topical photodynamic therapy ( PDT ) using 5‐aminolaevulinic acid ( ALA ) or methyl aminolevulinate ( MAL ) is widely used in dermatology. It is commonly stated that MAL PDT is less painful than ALA PDT , although published data are conflicting. We report our experience of the use of ALA (4–6 h) ( n = 20) and MAL (3 h) ( n = 20) in 40 consecutive patients with Bowen's disease or superficial basal cell carcinoma, treated with PDT using an identical irradiation regime. Although there was a trend to higher pain scores with ALA PDT [visual analogue scale ( VAS )score, median 4.50], this was not significantly different from that of MAL PDT ( VAS score, median 3.55; P = 0.98), nor considered to be clinically important. Importantly, both ALA and MAL PDT regimes were fairly well tolerated in this patient cohort, supporting the use of these prodrugs in dermatological PDT .