Safety of Grenz Ray Therapy

To the Editor.—  Burns'¹ editorial on the risk of cutaneous radiation for therapeutic purposes lets the casual reader assume that such a practice involves substantial dangers that render it undesirable in the management of benign dermatoses. We wish to offer a different interpretation of his review.He refers to the high risk of basal cell carcinoma following grenz, x-ray, or psoralen plus ultraviolet light (PUVA) therapy; actually the risk is extremely low. Lindelöf and Eklund,² reviewing over 14 000 cases treated with grenz ray therapy, concludes that the risk is indeed small, if any, when appropriate guidelines are followed. In another study, Mortensen and Kjeldsen³ reported five cases of skin cancer referred to the University Hospital at Århus (Denmark) over a 10-year period, all of whom were patients who received over 100 Gy, and only one of these appeared to have major complications. There is also a