Phototherapy units in Brazil: are they effective?

The irradiance delivered by a phototherapy unit is an important contributing factor to its efficacy. However, measurement of irradiance during phototherapy requires the use of a photometer which is rarely available in the nurseries of developing countries. We assessed the irradiance of phototherapy units both in the laboratory and in all public hospitals of the City of Rio de Janeiro and found that: a) there is no consensus among companies manufacturing phototherapy units as to the number of fluorescent lights to be used in an equipment since this number varied from 4 to 8, b) over 1/3 of the phototherapy units analysed had 1 or more burnt out lamps, c) the mean irradiance delivered by phototherapy units was 2.36 +/- 0.75 muw/cm2/nm (0.6 to 4.4 muw/cm2/nm) which is considerably lower than the dose currently recommended for clinical efficacy. These results may be relevant to other developing countries where phototherapy meters are seldomly available and irradiance is not routinely measured.