Oral Azithromycin Pulse Therapy and Daily Topical Benzoyl Peroxide in the Treatment of Acne Vulgaris: An Open Clinical Trial Study

Abstract

Introduction: Combination therapy is an effective approach to simultaneously target multiple pathogenic factor of acne. A unique combination of oral azithromycin pulse therapy and daily topical benzoyl peroxide has been developed for treatment of acne.Material & Methods: It was an open, controlled, clinical trial, conducted on 37 out patients with acne vulgaris. Patients were clinically assessed at baseline &at week 0,4, 8 and 12. Evaluation included success rate (subjects clear or excellent improvement, good response), lesion count & percentage change in lesion count from baseline, cutaneous tolerability & adverse events.Results: The combination of oral azithromycin pulse therapy & daily topical benzoyl peroxide was very safe & effective with significant differences in percentage of lesion count change observed as early as 1-4 weeks .Adverse events were more frequent with the combination therapy that occurred early in the study &were transient.Conclusion: This study revealed that combination regimen of azithromycin &benzoyl peroxide (4%) is indeed very much efficacious & safe in the management of acne vulgaris.J Bangladesh Coll Phys Surg 2018; 36(1): 11-15

Efficacy of Unani Combination Therapy in the Management of Acne Vulgaris: A Randomised Standard Controlled Study

“…They have shown a 70.7% reduction in Michaelsson Acne Severity Index after 8 weeks (which is almost similar to our results) and an 87% reduction in lesions after 12 weeks. 37 The efficacy of Azithromycin pulse therapy (Azithromycin 500mg thrice weekly) was also established by Sharma et al, in 8 weeks study on 200 subjects having moderate to severe acne (19-38 GAGS score) with total efficacy of 75%, which could be attributed to bigger sample size. 38 On analysis of pre-treatment and post-treatment safety parameters, it was observed that there was no significant change in any of the parameters in both the groups as summarized in table 3.…”

“…Subjects of both genders, belonging to the 13 to 35 years age group and willing to sign the informed consent form with moderate to severe acne (GAGS score [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] were included. Pregnant and lactating women, patients suffering from PCOD or using hormonal contraceptives were excluded.…”