A new study conducted by Ying Li and team demonstrated the effectiveness and safety profile of the systemic drug-laser-photon therapy combination in melasma patients. Also, the results support the potential of the therapy to develop into a brand-new, dependable therapeutic approach with broad applicability. The findings of this study were published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology.

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Numerous studies have demonstrated the potential effectiveness of combination therapy, such as taking tranexamic acid while receiving laser treatment. There are, however, few studies that use substantial sample sizes and repeatable findings. This study was carried out to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of a novel systemic drug-laser-photon therapy treatment.

For this study analysis of a retrospective, randomized, investigator-blinded trial including 75 individuals with mixed type melasma was performed. VISIA was used to take uniform pictures with each visit. Two dermatologists scored the modified melasma area and severity index (mMASI) using pictures.
The key findings of this study were:
After the therapy, the mMASI score drastically dropped from 6.92 to 3.84.
The VISIA analysis of the right cheek data reveals statistically significant increases in spots (from 49.67 ± 3.43 to 56.09 ± 3.31), UV spots (from 41.39 ± 24.45 to 44.56 ± 25.86), and brown spots (from 23.97 ± 17.89 to 28.16 ± 21.28) (p = 0.035, 0.018, and 0.07, respectively).
Approximately 10.17% of patients reported feeling much better, 30.51% reported feeling significantly better (51%-75%), 45.76% reported feeling moderately better (26%-50%), and 13.56% reported feeling little better (1%-25%).
In this clinical retrospective study, each instance could not have more than a one-month follow-up due to the patient's lifestyle changing. It is difficult to objectively measure the recurrence of stains after the completion of therapy due to the discomfort of telephone follow-up, and it may be erroneous to depend just on patient self-evaluation, as per the researchers.
Reference:
Li, Y., Shao, W., Fang, Q., Zhao, W., Wang, S., Wu, L., Hu, Y., Wang, X., Xue, Y., Chen, L., & Tan, W. (2022). A combination treatment of drug‐laser‐photon for melasma: A retrospective study of clinical cases. In Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocd.15488