Photodynamic Therapy is an Effective Treatment of Facial Pigmented Actinic Keratosis

BACKGROUND: Actinic keratosis (AK), or solar keratosis, is a precancerous condition of the skin, mainly caused by excessive and chronic exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Pigmented AK (pAK) is a rare variant of AK. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is widely used to treat the classical variant of AK, but very limited data are available on the use of PDT in patients with pAK. The objective of this study was to assess the usefulness of PDT in the treatment of pAK. METHODS: The study included 16 patients with 20 pAK lesions treated with PDT. All skin lesions were clinically and dermatoscopically assessed for typical features characteristic of pAK. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) was also used to assess keratinocyte atypia, confirm pAK diagnosis, and rule out other disease entities. RESULTS: After three PDT sessions, the complete resolution of all clinical features of pAK was observed in 80% of the studied lesions. Dermatoscopically, 65% of the lesions achieved 100% response and no cellular atypia was seen in the follow-up RCM images of 85% of lesions. CONCLUSIONS: Photodynamic therapy is an effective treatment modality for pAK in fair-skinned individuals.