Prostaglandins in human skin disease

Abstract

A variety of different, experimentally induced human skin inflammatory stimuli including UV‐A (Barr et al., 1982a; Gilchrest et al., 1982), UV‐B (Black et al., 1978, 1980; Hensby et al., 1980; Black, Hensby & Greaves, 1982), UV‐C (Camp et al., 1978), infra‐red (Hensby et al., 1982), trafuril (Plummer et al., 1977) and anthralin (Barr et al., 1982b) cause marked and prolonged elevations of the recoverable levels of arachidonic acid and its cyclo‐oxygenase products. The known pharmacology of many prostanoids (products of the prostaglandin cyclo‐oxy‐genase system) including vasodilatation and synergism with other inflammatory mediators (Hensby, Kingston & Greaves, 1976; Camp, 1982) would suggest a role for prostanoids in various human skin diseases, particularly those associated with an inflammatory component. We now report the preliminary results that we have obtained for the recoverable levels of four prostanoids, namely PGE2, PGD2, PGF2x, and 6‐oxo‐PGF1x in four human skin disorders, viz. psoriasis, tuberculin delayed hypersensitivity, vitiligo and scleroderma.