New Treatments for Adult Female Acne
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Adult female acne is a common dermatological condition whose management is challenging because of its tendency toward chronicity, recurrence, and resistance to available treatments. The aim of this systematic review is to study the effectiveness, safety, and use profile of antiandrogenic treatments used as an alternative in women who present alterations in androgen hormones or receptors or who have a state of hyperandrogenism.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: A search was conducted in the PubMed database including all types of epidemiological studies-clinical trials, retrospective, prospective, cohort, and case-series studies-published in the last 10 years and performed in humans that evaluated the effectiveness and safety of antiandrogenic treatments-spironolactone, metformin, and bicalutamide-in patients with acne.
RESULTS: Thirteen articles met the inclusion criteria, evaluating a total of 1335 patients. Of these 13 articles, 4 (30.8%) addressed spironolactone and 9 (69.2%) addressed metformin. No studies were found evaluating the effectiveness and tolerability of bicalutamide for acne. Both drugs showed good results in reducing acne lesions, measured with different scales, and in terms of safety and tolerability. The most frequent adverse effects were menstrual irregularities in the case of spironolactone and gastrointestinal discomfort with the use of metformin. The latter also showed good results in improving the lipid profile, insulin resistance, and BMI, which…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 1,335 participants or records.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Metformin as an adjuvant in breast cancer treatment
- Metformin Lysosomal Targeting: A Novel Aspect to Be Investigated for Metformin Repurposing in Neurodegenerative Diseases?
- Aberrant HSF1 signaling activation underlies metformin amelioration of myocardial infarction in mice
- Metformin induces ZFP36 by mTORC1 inhibition in cervical cancer-derived cell lines
- Protein Interaction Network for Identifying Vascular Response of Metformin (Oral Antidiabetic)
- Preventing Long COVID With Metformin
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.