Poster presentation, P99

Official XXIst International Pigment Cell Conference website - 21-24 Sept 2011, Bordeaux - France | updated: September 04 2011

Narrow-band UVB may improve pigmented spots in patients with neurofibromatosis 1

Café-au-lait spots or ephelides-like spots are one of the major problems of patients with NF1. Recently, we observed slight improvement of the spots after irradiation of NB-UVB because of the concomitant pruritus of the skin of the patients. All of the patients irradiated with NB-UVB are satisfied with the improvement of the pigmented spots by questionnaire. The mechanism of the improvement by NB-UVB is not clear at present, but it may be either due to the induction of activated vitamin D3 in the skin of the patients or suppression of mast cells infiltrating to the pigmented lesions. We have previously found that a vitamin D3 analogue inhibited melanocyte growth in vitro, and topical application of the vitamin D3 ointment improved café-au lait spots in vivo. Therefore, it is now in progress of investigating whether NB-UVB induces activated vitamin D3 in the keratinocytes or other cells in vitro and also whether NB-UVB increased activated vitamin D3 in the periphery blood of the irradiated patients in vivo.

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