Unsuccessful treatment of recalcitrant cutaneous discoid lupus erythematosus with photodynamic therapy.

Discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) can be a therapeutic challenge. Antimalarials and topic steroids are the first-line standard therapies, while systemic steroids, immunomodulators (as azathioprine, methotrexate, cyclosporine), retinoids (acitretin), thalidomide, auranofin and dapsone are used as second-line therapies. We report two patients with recalcitrant DLE who were treated with three and two sessions of 5-aminolevulinic photodynamic therapy without an improvement and with a bad tolerance to the therapy.