Correlating skin phototype and minimum erythema dose in Arab skin

Skin typing, as proposed by Fitzpatrick, has been used for estimating the initial dose in phototherapy.1 However, several reports have questioned the reliability of the method.2-4 It has been suggested that skin typing should not be the sole basis for starting UV-B phototherapy, and that determining the minimum erythema dose (MED) is a more reliable method of estimating the UV-B dosage.5 There is little published data with respect to skin types and MED values in Arab skin. In this review, we present our experience on the subject with Bahraini patients.