Vitamin A Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Vitamin A, including details on retinol, benefits, dosage, supplements, deficiency, information.

A comparison of triple combination cream and hydroquinone 4% cream for the treatment of moderate to severe facial melasma.

Ferreira Cestari T, Hassun K, Sittart A, de Lourdes Viegas M

Department of Dermatology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul--Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil. tcestari@hcpa.ufrgs.br

The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy and safety of a triple combination (TC) cream and monotherapy with hydroquinone (HQ) cream in the treatment of moderate to severe facial melasma. A total of 120 patients applied TC cream once daily or HQ cream twice daily for 8 weeks. Evaluations included static global severity assessment of melasma, improvement of melasma over time, local tolerability, and adverse events. TC cream was significantly more effective than HQ cream from week 4 onwards: lesions were approximately equivalent to the surrounding skin in 35% of all TC-treated patients, compared to 5% of those who used HQ cream (P = 0.0001). Improvement of more than 75% was achieved by 73% of TC cream patients and 49% of HQ cream patients (P = 0.007). The incidence of adverse events (erythema, burning sensation, and desquamation) was similar in both groups. No patient dropped out of the study because of drug-related adverse events. TC cream was more effective than the HQ cream for the treatment of moderate to severe facial melasma. Both products had similar safety profiles.

Published 12 March 2007 in J Cosmet Dermatol, 6(1): 36-9.
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