Wood’s lamp, also called Wood’s light or LW, is a diagnostic device widely used in dermatology and aesthetics to check skin lesions and their extension characteristics based on the fluorescence observed during exposure of the analyzed lesion to low wavelength ultraviolet light.
Wood’s light injury analysis should be performed in a dark environment with no visible light to make the diagnosis as correct as possible, so that the dermatologist can indicate the best treatment option.
- The wooden lamp is used to determine the degree and extent of the dermatological lesion.
- Helping to diagnose and define treatment.
- Therefore.
- LW can be used to:.
Depending on the color of the luminescence, it is possible to identify and differentiate the dermatological lesions, in the case of infectious dermatoses, fluorescence is the infectious agent, but in the case of porphyria, the fluorescence is produced from substances in the urine .
In the case of pigmentation disorders, Wood’s lamp is used not only to assess the limits and characteristics of the injury, but also to verify unidentified subclinical lesions during conventional dermatological examination, only by fluorescence.
Although the use of the Wood lamp is very effective in diagnosing and monitoring the evolution of lesions, its use does not exempt from conventional dermatological examination.Understand how the dermatological examination is performed.
Wood’s lamp is a small, inexpensive device that identifies several dermatological lesions according to the fluorescence diagram seen when the lesion is illuminated at a low wavelength.Ultraviolet light is emitted at a wavelength of 340 to 450 nm by an arc of mercury and filtered through a glass plate composed of barium silicate and 9% nickel oxide.
For the diagnosis to be the most correct, it is necessary that the assessment of wood lamp injury is carried out 15 cm from the injury, in a dark environment with no visible light, so that only fluorescence of the lesion is perceived.The most common fluorescence regimens for dermatological lesions are: