Clinical management of the acute sunburn reaction

Critical reviews of published human studies about pharmacologic agents used to treat the sunburn reaction show that systemic and topical corticosteroids have little or no clinically important effect on the sunburn reaction. Systemic and topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, when used at dosages to achieve optimal serum levels for anti-inflammatory effect, only result in an early and mild reduction of ultraviolet B-induced erythema. Due to the lack of demonstrated clinical efficacy of these and other medicines to eliminate sunburn or decrease healing time, we currently suggest conservative local symptomatic treatment with adequate pain control until the sunburn naturally resolves.