The treatment of urticaria pigmentosa with the frequency-doubled Q-switch Nd:YAG laser

Urticaria pigmentosa is a chronic benign proliferation of mast cells in the skin that presents considerable cosmetic disability, for which there is no current successful treatment. We describe a 30-year-old woman with urticaria pigmentosa in whom treatment with the Nd:YAG laser produced a significant improvement in the clinical appearance of the eruption, with some recurrence after 9 months. This procedure has not previously been described, and we propose this as a potential new treatment modality for urticaria pigmentosa.