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Clinical efficacy of laser combined with menstrual regulation in the treatment of female melasma: a retrospective study

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of using a Medlite C6 Q-switch Nd:YAG laser combined with menstrual regulation–based traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of female melasma. Forty cases of female patients with melasma, who were treated between December 2013 and December 2015 at the Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, were reviewed retrospectively. Twenty patients received Q-switch Nd:YAG 1064 nm laser treatments combined with menstrual regulation treatments (experimental group), and 20 patients were treated only with the laser (control group). All treatments lasted for 6 months. The patients’ faces were photographed before, immediately, and 6 months after treatment. The therapeutic efficacy was assessed by the reduction in the Melasma Area and Severity Index (MASI) score and the total skin damage score, and this was then compared between the two groups. Immediately and 6 months after the treatment, both the MASI and total skin damage scores in the experimental group were significantly lower compared to those in the control group (P < 0.001). The experimental group had significantly higher basic recovery and effectiveness rates than the control group (P = 0.020 and P = 0.008, respectively) and had a significantly lower invalidity rate (P < 0.001). Results from Medlite C6 Q-switch Nd:YAG laser treatment combined with menstrual regulation are superior than those obtained using only a laser for the treatment of female melasma.

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Author notes

  1. Yu Jin, Wenbo Jiang, Huang Huang and Jinlong Huang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plastic Surgery, Jiangsu Province Hospital of TCM, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of TCM, No. 155, Hanzhong Road, Nanjing, 210029, China

    Yu Jin & Jinlong Huang

  2. Cardiovascular Medicine Department, Suqian Hospital of TCM, Jiangsu province, Suqian, 223800, People’s Republic of China

    Wenbo Jiang

  3. General Surgery Department, Nanjing Pukou District Hospital of TCM, Nanjing, 211800, People’s Republic of China

    Yonghui Yao

  4. College of Basic Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 282, Hanzhong Road, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Huang Huang

Authors
  1. Yu Jin
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  2. Wenbo Jiang
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  3. Yonghui Yao
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  4. Huang Huang
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  5. Jinlong Huang
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Huang Huang or Jinlong Huang.

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Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all the participants included in the study.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Jin, Y., Jiang, W., Yao, Y. et al. Clinical efficacy of laser combined with menstrual regulation in the treatment of female melasma: a retrospective study. Lasers Med Sci 34, 1099–1105 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-018-02698-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-018-02698-w

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