Although sunlight has an association with medical treatment from at least as far back as the classical Athens era of ancient Greek medicine, including favorable mentions from Herodotus and Hippocrates, a scientific approach to photomedicine is a relatively recent development dating to Niels Finsen’s work in the late 19th century.
Finsen won the 1903 Nobel prize for his work using arc lamp sources and to treat lupus vulgaris and small pox, which was followed by a steady stream of phototherapy developments over the remainder of the century: broadband mercury lamps, FS fluorescent lamps, Psoralen+UVA (PUVA), and Narrowband UVB.
Currently, with over 40 years of experience with PUVA, over 25 years of narrowband UVB, and over 20 years of UVA1, a large variety of diseases have been successfully treated with phototherapy, ranging from the very common such as eczema and psoriasis to the very rare such as cutaneous GVHD. The following is a partial listing of these conditions:
Note: This list is provided for reference purposes only. Not all Daavlin equipment is specifically approved, in every market, for each of the above indications.
