Phototherapy for allergic rhinitis: a prospective, randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled study

BACKGROUND: Phototherapy has a profound immunosuppressive effect, and phototherapeutic methods using both ultraviolet (UV) and visible light are therefore widely used for the therapy of various inflammatory skin diseases. It is also proposed that phototherapy, using a combination of UV-A (25%), UV-B (5%) and visible light (70%), may represent a therapeutic alternative in patients with allergic rhinitis. METHOD: Seventy-nine patients were randomly assigned to receive either a combination of UV-A (25%), UV-B (5%) and visible light (70%), in the phototherapy group, or low-intensity visible light, in the control group. The efficacy of treatment was assessed by means of total nasal symptom score before treatment and 1 month after the end of treatment. RESULTS: Total nasal scores decreased in both groups but the decrease was highly significant in the active treatment group when compared with the placebo (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that phototherapy may be an effective modality in the treatment of allergic rhinitis especially in cases of which commonly used drugs either are contraindicated and/or have insufficient efficacy.