Photodynamic therapy using light-emitting diodes for the treatment of viral warts

Photodynamic therapy with topical 5-aminolevulinic acid is an effective and safe treatment for actinic keratosis and superficial non-melanoma skin cancer. Further, some studies have reported good efficacy when using photodynamic therapy to treat viral warts. The light-emitting diode is an incoherent, narrow-spectrum light source. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of photodynamic therapy using a light-emitting diode for viral warts. Six patients with a total of 41 foot and hand warts were recruited in this study. They were treated with 20% 5-aminolevulinic acid cream under occlusion for 5 h. Thereafter, the treated area was irradiated with the light from a red light-emitting diode (633 +/- 6 nm) with a dose of 126 J/cm(2). This treatment was repeated at 2- or 3-week intervals. The rate of improvement observed in patients was 68.3%. The adverse effects included mild to moderate pain and erythema, which was well-tolerated by all six patients. No patients withdrew from the study due to the adverse effects. Photodynamic therapy with topical 5-aminolevulinic acid using the light from a red light-emitting diode has the advantage of non-invasiveness, minimal associated adverse reactions, and production of good results in a significant proportion of cases: therefore, it is an alternative treatment for recalcitrant viral warts.