Pulsed Dye Laser in psoriasis A nerve-wrecking event?

This thesis investigates the mechanisms and effects of Pulsed Dye Laser (PDL) therapy in the treatment of psoriasis, aiming to clarify the underlying mechanisms of PDL's therapeutic effects. The research encompasses a range of experimental approaches, including in vitro, ex vivo, in silico, and in vivo studies. The first chapters focus on the impact of hyperthermia on various cell types, while the later chapters present clinical patient studies that explore the detailed morphology of the perivascular network in the skin and the changes it undergoes following PDL treatment. The original hypothesis of the work that PDL destructs perivascular nerves in psoriasis could not be confirmed, yet 3D histological sections suggested that PDL may inflict damage upon the CD3+ immune cell clusters right below the dermo-epidermal junction. Thus, PDL may cause thermal damage that leads to a functional, but not morphological, alteration of nerve fibers and possibly also cause thermal damage to immune cell clusters around the vasculature of the skin.