Department of Dermatology, University of Turku, Turku – Finland

Health effects of UV radiation is a main focus for the UV Research Group at the University of Turku, with themes including polymorphic light eruption (PLE), phototherapy and phototesting, as well as cellular and molecular effects of UV radiation.

Turku represents the northernmost end of the geographical locations across Europe in the prevalence study of the SUNALL project. Recently, we finished the interrogation of one thousand persons from the staff of the Turku University Central Hospital, about 15% of them subscribing to a possible history of symptoms of sun allergy.

Other objectives have included to establish whether PLE patients are generally hypersensitive to cutaneous allergens and/or whether their contact sensitivity reactivity is inadequately suppressed by UV irradiation, which might allow illicit immune reactivity against UV-induced neo-antigens. The study objectives include to

• compare the ability of PLE patients and healthy volunteers to mount immunological reactivity to an experimental contact allergen;
  
• compare the ability to downregulate that immune reactivity when the sensitisation site is exposed to an erythematogenic dose of UV radiation before sensitisation;
  
• compare the relationship between UV erythemal reactivity and the aforementioned immunological parameters;
  
• compare the effect of a preceding series of sub-erythematogenic UV exposures, i.e. hardening treatment, on the erythemal and immunological parameters.