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. 2015 Oct 7:4:228.
doi: 10.4103/2277-9175.166651. eCollection 2015.

Efficacy of topical azathioprine and betamethasone versus betamethasone-only emollient cream in 2-18 years old patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis: A randomized controlled trial

Fariba Iraji  1 , Sadaf Farhadi  1 , Gita Faghihi  1 , Fatemeh Mokhtari  1 , Akram Basiri  2 , Tohid Jafari-Koshki  3 , Mohammad Ali Nilforoushzadeh  4
Affiliations

Efficacy of topical azathioprine and betamethasone versus betamethasone-only emollient cream in 2-18 years old patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis: A randomized controlled trial

Fariba Iraji et al. Adv Biomed Res. .

Abstract

Background: Atopic dermatitis is a chronic skin disease with increasing prevalence worldwide and a considerable burden especially among children. To circumvent the problems related to oral azathioprine (AZT) we aimed to evaluate its topical variant and assess its efficacy in patients aged 2-18.

Materials and methods: In a single-blind trial, we randomized the patients into two groups, one treated with topical emollient containing AZT and betamethasone (BM), and the other treated solely with topical emollient of BM. The treatments were administered twice a day for 8 weeks in both groups. The efficacy, recurrence, and the presence of side effects were evaluated using SPSS 20.

Results: The amount of reduction in severity scoring for atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) score was significantly greater in the group treated with the topical AZT (P = 0.024). Incidentally, there were no difference between two treatments in difference in proportions of recurrence and adverse effects as well as SCORAD reduction in subgroups of sex and age (all P > 0.05).

Conclusions: Our results showed the superiority of topical AZT over BM with a low recurrence and adverse effects. No expectation of severe side effects, like those of oral AZT, is the major advantage of topical AZT. The sample size was an issue in uncovering the value of AZT in the subgroups. Conducting prolonged studies of quality-of-life and comparing the topical AZT potency relative to the common alternatives are recommended areas of future work.

Keywords: Atopic; azathioprine; child; clinical trial; dermatitis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study design
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean severity scoring for atopic dermatitis profiles for azathioprine and betamethasone group and betamethasone-only group
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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