BACKGROUND: To treat moderate to severe acne vulgaris, we developed an optical fiber imported intra-tissue photodynamic therapy: the optical fiber irradiation 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (OFI-ALA-PDT). The aim of this study was to compare the treatment effect and tolerability of OFI-ALA-PDT versus traditional ALA-PDT in the treatment of moderate to severe acne vulgaris.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: 60 patients with facial acne enrolled into this study were randomly divided into an OFI-ALA-PDT group and a traditional ALA-PDT group, with 30 patients in each group. The difference between these 2 groups was the red light irradiation methods used. In the OFI-ALA-PDT group we used intra-tissue irradiation (import the red light directly into the target lesion with optical fiber) for 5 min, while the traditional ALA-PDT group received whole-face irradiation for 20 min. All patients received 1 irradiation every 7 to 10 days for a total of 6 irradiations. Treatment effects and adverse reactions were recorded after the 4th and 6th irradiation, and at 4, 8, 16 weeks after the entire treatment.

RESULTS: After the 4th irradiation, significantly different effective rates were observed in these groups (90.0% for the OFI-ALA-PDT group and 66.7% for the control group). However, no significant difference in effective rate was recorded in the later observations. There were 182 adverse reactions in the OFI-ALA-PDT group and 497 in the control group, which showed a significant difference (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: OFI-ALA-PDT showed improved treatment effective rate in the early stage of irradiation, and it had fewer adverse reactions.

Keywords: Aminolevulinic Acid - therapeutic use, Acne Vulgaris - drug therapy, Case-Control Studies, Follow-Up Studies, Optical Fibers - adverse effects, Photochemotherapy - adverse effects