The response of acne vulgaris to antibiotics both oral and topical

Abstract EN

Background : Acne vulgaris is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that involves pilosebaceous units.

Many systemic treatments used for acne vulgaris such as antibiotics, hormonal therapy, isotretinoin and occasionally, corticosteroids.

Oral azithromycin has been advocated by some in the treatment of acne, but its efficacy has not been established.

Objectives : To compare the efficacy and safety of Azithromycin and doxycycline in the treatment of inflammatory acne.

Methods : This study was conducted on 50 patients who attended the outpatient clinic of the Royal medical services hospital, Jordan.

In the first group, oral azithromycin 500 mg was administered daily before meals for 3 consecutive days in a l0-day cycle, with the remaining seven days in each cycle being drug-free days.

The second group was given doxycycline 100 mg daily after meals.

Topical erythromycin was prescribed to all patients.

Clinical follow-up assessment was done at l0-day intervals for both the groups up to three months.

Results : The study showed 70% improvement in azithromycin treated group in comparison to 60% in the doxycycline treated group.

There was a statistically significant reduction in severity in the azithromycin treated group.

Conclusion : The results show that azithromycin is a safe and effective alternative in the treatment of inflammatory acne with few side-effects and good compliance, a combination of azithromycin with topical erythromycin was significantly better than doxycycline with topical erythromycin in the treatment of acne vulgaris.

The incidence of side effects were less with azithromycin.