Outcome of "Short-term" Dead Sea Climatotherapy for Psoriasis

Climatotherapy at the Dead Sea (CDS) for patients with psoriasis induces a persistent remission in the majority of patients with psoriasis, is associated with minor side-effects and is pleasant for the patients (1–11). The published literature on CDS describes patients with moderate to severe psoriasis who spend an average period of one month (“long-term”) at the Dead Sea. There are no published data, however, on the effectiveness and characteristics of “short-term” CDS for patients with psoriasis, who spend only 2 weeks at the Dead Sea.The instruments used previously for assessment of response to CDS in psoriasis patients were not stan-dardized. In the last 10 years, the use of a 75% or 50% decrease in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI75 and PASI50, respectively; 12, 13) has become the gold standard in evaluating the efficiency of psoriasis treat-ment. In a literature review, we found no publications that used the PASI75 or PASI50 instruments to assess the response to CDS in patients with psoriasis. In a previous study we have shown the utility of the Beer Sheva Psoriasis Severity Score (BPSS) to assess pso-riasis severity and response to treatment (14). The objective of the current study was to assess the effectiveness of CDS in a series of patients with psoria-sis treated for a “short-term” period of 2 weeks, using BPSS and PASI, with particular emphasis on PASI75 and PASI50 end-points.METHODS