14. Efficacy of Oral Tranexamic Acid in the Treatment of Melsama
Sehrish Javed1, Ghoza Chaudhery1, Ayesha Ijaz1 and Qandeel Asif2
ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the efficacy of oral tranexamic acid (TXA) in the treatment of melasma.
Study Design: Descriptive study.
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the Outpatient Department (OPD) of Medicine and Dermatology, Nishtar Hospital Multan from March 2016 to March 2017.
Materials and Methods: One hundred and ninety patients were selected. Patient’s basic data and demography was noted. Patients with acquired hyper-pigmentation on the face tan to brown macules or patches located symmetrically with initial MASI score > 10 were included in this cross-sectional study. Melasma assessment severity index (MASI) score was calculated for each patient at the start of treatment. Patients were treated with oral Tranexamic acid 250 mg given twice daily for a period of six weeks. After 6 weeks of treatment with oral TXA, MASI score was again calculated for each patient. Difference between two MASI scores (i.e MASI score reduction) and percentage of reduction in MASI score of each patient was calculated. Data analysis was computer based with the use of SPSS version 16.
Results: A total of 190 women were included in this study, all patients had MASI score more than 10 before start of treatment. Mean age of our study cases was 34.43 ± 9.23 years with minimum age was 26 years and maximum age was 60 years. Menopausal status was positive in only 18 (9.5%) of our study cases. Mean pretreatment MASI score 39.60 ± 8.04, with minimum MASI score was 25 and maximum was 47. Mean post treatment MASI score was 5.35
± 2.56 with minimum MASI score was 2 while maximum was 9. Our study results have indicated that there was significant reduction of MASI score in terms of pretreatment MASI score and post treatment MASI score (p=0.000). Excellent response was seen in 68(35.8%) of our study cases while 122 (64.2%) had good response with oral tranexamic acid.
Conclusion: Oral use of Tranexamic acid is efficacious, safe and effective treatment for the melasma patients without any serious side effect. Oral administration of Tranexamic acid provides rapid and sustained clinical improvement in the treatment of melasma. The results of our study support use of Oral Tranexamic acid among targeted population which had significant impact on the improvement of quality of life of these patients and relieved them from psychological stress of this disease. Further studies on this subject are needed.
Key Words: Melasma, Tranexamic acid, efficacy.
Citation of articles: Javed S, Chaudhery G, Ijaz A, Asif Q. Efficacy of Oral Tranexamic Acid in the Treatment of Melsama. Med Forum 2017;28(10):56-59.