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Course Instructor
Abby Massey
Capstone Semester
Fall 2021
Date of Graduation
12-21-2021
Abstract
Objective: Assessing the effectiveness of photodynamic therapy with aminolevulinic acid versus placebo in the complete clearance rate of actinic keratosis.Design: Systematic literature review. Methods: An initial literature search was performed using Google Scholar using terms “photodynamic therapy”, “aminolevulinic acid,” “randomized control trial”, “actinic keratosis”, “clearance efficacy”, “safety”, “field treatment”, and “placebo”. An additional search using PubMed was performed using the same terms. Studies were excluded if they were performed on non-human subjects, did not use aminolevulinic acid as their photosensitizer, used organ transplant recipients, compared efficacy to alternate treatment modalities, used alternative light source such as laser or daylight, or if they evaluated the clearance rates of squamous cell carcinoma in situ or basal cell carcinoma. The final studies were selected based on their relation to our clinical question. Results: Pariser et al found that the median actinic keratosis clearance rate at week 12 for aminolevulinic acid treated subjects ranged from 68% to 79% compared to 7% with placebo. Complete clearance rate at week 12 for the treatment group ranged from 17% to 30% compared to 2% in the placebo group. Piacquadio et al found 75% clearing of treated lesions at week 8 was 77% and 89% at week 12 compared to 18% and 13%, respectively for the placebo group. Taub found that 73% of patients who received aminolevulinic acid achieved at least 50 percent reduction in lesion count when compared to only 13% in the placebo group.
Conclusion: All three randomized vehicle-controlled studies demonstrated efficacy and safety for actinic keratosis clearance rates when compared to placebo.
Document Type
Capstone
Recommended Citation
Nguyen M, Shook K. Photodynamic Therapy with Topical Aminolevulinic Acid vs Placebo in the Treatment of Actinic Keratosis. JMU Scholarly Commons.
