title: Needle-free injection of 5-aminolevulinic acid in photodynamic therapy for the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been widely used in treatment for skin cancer. However, topical 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) in PDT demonstrates poor therapeutic effect due to its shallow penetration. And intralesional ALA-PDT can bring great pain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of PDT with needle-free injection of ALA in the treatment of nonmalignant skin tumors.
  
  
  METHODS
  54 non-melanocytic malignant lesions of 54 subjects were treated with needle-free injection of 20% 5-ALA under occlusion for 1.5 hours, and irradiated with light dose of 100 J/cm(2) at 100 mW for 20 minutes. Evaluation of treatment efficacy was conducted at 2 week after treatment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  44 cases showed complete response with six cycles of PDT, three cases with seven cycles, and three cases with nine cycles. The remaining four cases failed to show complete response even with nine cycle of PDT. No case was reported to have recurrence in 6 months posttreatment. Only four cases experienced disease recurrence in 1 year posttreatment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The treatment with PDT using needle-free injection of 5-ALA appears to be effective and well tolerated with milder therapeutic pain and low recurrence rate. It can be proposed as an effective treatment alternative for non-melanoma skin cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Sony
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Labh
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Hong-Yue
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Diao
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Xiu-Li
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Yu
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Ling
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000622:Aminolevulinic Acid / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007267:Injections; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010778:Photochemotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D000622:Aminolevulinic Acid
keywords: 5-aminolevulinic acid; needle-free injection; non-melanoma skin cancer; photodynamic therapy