The patient-centered acne severity scale study

Guidelines of care for the management of acne vulgaris

BACKGROUND

Acne vulgaris commonly affects adults, adolescents, and preadolescents aged 9 years or older.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to provide evidence-based recommendations for the management of acne.

METHODS

A work group conducted a systematic review and applied the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach for assessing the certainty of evidence and formulating and grading recommendations.

RESULTS

This guideline presents 18 evidence-based recommendations and 5 good practice statements. Strong recommendations are made for benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids, topical antibiotics, and oral doxycycline. Oral isotretinoin is strongly recommended for acne that is severe, causing psychosocial burden or scarring, or failing standard oral or topical therapy. Conditional recommendations are made for topical clascoterone, salicylic acid, and azelaic acid, as well as for oral minocycline, sarecycline, combined oral contraceptive pills, and spironolactone. Combining topical therapies with multiple mechanisms of action, limiting systemic antibiotic use, combining systemic antibiotics with topical therapies, and adding intralesional corticosteroid injections for larger acne lesions are recommended as good practice statements.

LIMITATIONS

Analysis is based on the best available evidence at the time of the systematic review.

CONCLUSIONS

These guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations for the management of acne vulgaris.

The SII reflects inflammation in acne vulgaris, but fails to determine categorical severity

BACKGROUND

Systemic Immune Inflammation Index (SII; calculated by multiplying neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio and platelet count) has been investigated as a marker of inflammation.

AIM

we aimed to investigate the relationship of SII with acne severity and whether it can be used as a practical method in determining categorical acne severity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

All participants (aged 15-30 years, n = 212) were prospectively evaluated with acne severity scales, including the Global Acne-Grading System (GAGS), the Comprehensive Acne Severity Scale (CASS), and the Patient-centered Acne Severity Scale. Patients were grouped according to GAGS: healthy individuals (n = 53), patients with mild (n = 44), moderate (n = 86), and severe acne (n = 29). Patients' hemogram data obtained simultaneously with the physical examination were used in the analysis.

RESULTS

The groups were statistically similar in terms of age and gender, both according to acne severity and current lesion types. The neutrophil count was significantly higher in patients with nodulocystic acne than in acne patients with non-inflammatory lesions or healthy individuals (p: 0.022). SII was significantly higher in acne patients with nodulocystic lesions than in individuals with milder lesions, both non-inflammatory and inflammatory (p = 0.004). SII was weakly significantly correlated with GAGS, CASS, and the number of nodulocystic lesions (r = 0.164, p = 0.018; r = 0.147, p = 0.034; r = 0.222, p = 0.001). However, none of the hemogram parameters, including SII, differed in classifying acne severity according to GAGS (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Systemic immune inflammation index may be a new and reliable inflammatory marker to reflect the severity of inflammation, especially in patients with nodulocystic acne, although it is not useful in categorizing acne severity.

A randomized prospective study of low-dose isotretinoin alone and combination with salicylic acid and mandelic peel against acne tarda

BACKGROUND

Acne tarda (AT) is typically known as adult acne and most preferably affected 25-45 age groups. Used isotretinoid mono-therapy is not effective and also produces side effects from long treatment.

AIM

The present study assesses the effectiveness of combined treatment of oral isotretinoid with topical chemical peeling (20% salicylic and 10% mandelic acid known as SM peeling) by a comparative double-blind randomized single-center interventional open-label study.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total fifty-eight participants AT outpatients (25-45 age-groups) attending for diagnosis in two groups and effectiveness of proposed combined treatments were determined at baseline and follow-up within 4weeks interval. Briefly group A (n=28) received 0.5 mg/kg of oral isotretinoin once daily for sixteen weeks and group B (n=30) received the same oral dose, addition with SM peeling every four weeks interval for sixteen weeks. After four weeks, treatment efficacy was assessed based on Michelson's acne severity index (MASI) and visual analog scale (VAS), further validated using statistical tools.

RESULTS

Based on MASI and VAS scores, combined treatment was significantly effective than the monotherapy. The pre- and post-treatment analyses of response to scarring, inflammatory components at baseline and at the end of treatment were also statistically significant with p>0.008.

CONCLUSION

The above investigation revealed that the combination of oral isotretinoin with SM peeling was highly effective and could be used as newer therapy against AT without any serious side effects.