Dear Friends and Colleagues, More than three years have passed since we all met at our World Photodermatology Day in June 2019 at the WCD Milan. We went through a dark period due to the Covid pandemic and our usual meetings for the Annual Photodermatology Day were held as virtual events. This was better than nothing, but we all missed the ambiance of the “in presence” meetings, we could not interact properly and could not discuss face to face and shake hands.
Now light is coming back and this is good also for Photodermatology... To restart, we have decided to publish part of the abstracts that were presented at the World Photodermatology Day 2019 in Milan and one abstract for each one of the Photodermatology Day meetings that followed the WCD in Milan. All this illustrates that in Photodermatology the sun never sets.
Photodermatology is the scientific discipline that deals with how sunlight or parts of it, in particular the ultraviolet (UV) band, affects the skin, our directly visible, frontier organ facing our environment. Although this discipline would appear well within the domain of our everyday experience, many of the basic processes involved are still not fully charted and understood. Concerning therapeutic approaches, the term photomedicine has been coined, also because some of the effects of light go far beyond the skin, and light administration is also used in medicine in general. This special issue aims to present a selection of topics to provide a bird’s eye view of the field.
An area of broad public interest is represented by the photodermatoses: in this chapter, of note, is the lecture on “Quality of life and psychological impact of the photodermatoses” by Dr. Kirsty Rutter from the Photobiology Unit, Salford Royal Hospital, University of Manchester, UK, that sheds light on the consequences that these widespread diseases can have on the life of patients and their behavior. In the same area, we present an update on “diagnostic photo testing” by Prof. Sally Ibbotson, who gave also an interesting lecture on “Drug induced photosensitivity and photocarcinogenesis” at the World Photodermatology Day in Milan.
Another very interesting invited lecture at the WCD Milan 2019 was that of Yolanda Gilaberte and coll. on “PDT for infectious diseases” discussing the possible applications of PDT in the treatment of cutaneous infections.
Kolbe and coll. in their lecture at the WCD in Milan “Skin photo-protection by Nrf2-induction - A line of defense against high energy visible light-induced oxidative stress” discuss protection of the skin to wavelengths beyond UV, like high energy visible light (HEVIS) by a novel generation of topical agents that boost protective mechanisms of the skin, namely due to the effect of adding antioxidants.
Gelmetti and Calzavara in their lecture at the WCD in Milan, “Phototherapy in the age of biologics: keeping up with the new therapies”, provided an excellent perspective on the main indications for use of narrowband UVB (311–313 nm) as related to the use of modern systemic therapies, like biologics, and provided comparative information on one of the most well known and longstanding dermatological treatments, which, despite the introduction of biologics continues to remain invaluable for many conditions such as psoriasis, atopic eczema, vitiligo, and cutaneous T cell lymphoma.
Another important lecture on “Vitamin D and melanoma” was given at the WCD 2019 by Prof. Marjan Garmyn: is there a possible protective effect of VD on melanoma outcome? This is supported by in vitro studies and small animal studies, but it has to be confirmed with large-scale studies in humans.
Nowadays a topic of great interest is represented by the environmental impact of sunscreen use and this has been presented and discussed in “Environmental Threat due to Sunscreens.” by Henry W. Lim, from Detroit, Michigan, USA, in his invited lecture at the ESPD Virtual Photodermatology Day in October 2020.
Last but not least, Cheng-Che Eric Lan, from the Department of Dermatology, Kaohsiung Medical, Taiwan, gave a superb overview of the “Effects of photon density on UVA-induced photoaging” at the WCD in Milan, where he described how the biological effects of equivalent UVA fluence administered at different irradiance on the skin can influence the effect of UVA-induced skin aging related to sunscreen use.
I am excited to present this issue of Flash on Photodermatology, which intends to be as updated as possible while presenting and discussing some of the topics that are related to the interaction between human skin and light.
Thanks to all our presenters for their contribution and continued passion in this area. I hope that your reading will only stimulate more questions, which our specialty will answer together. Enjoy!
Rome, June 2022
