Lack of comparative research into acne treatments could limit their effectiveness

Acne is a chronic disease which can be painful and disfiguring. Many treatments are publicised as cures for acne, often at considerable expense to the sufferer and the healthcare system. A new clinical review by experts at The University of Nottingham says there is very little research evidence to show which treatments work best and whether expensive treatments are any better than traditional ones. The review, led by a team from the Centre for Evidence Based Dermatology (CEBD), at The University of Nottingham, along with colleagues from the University of Colorado, Denver, highlights that the long-term use of antibiotics to treat acne might also contribute to bacterial resistance. As a result they say there is an increasing urgency to test treatments and develop more effective non-antibiotic therapies. The results of their study are published online in The Lancet today Tuesday 30 August 2011. Hywel Williams, Professor of Dermato-Epidemiology and Director of the CEBD said: "The large number of products and product combinations, and the scarcity of comparative studies, has led to disparate guidelines with few recommendations being evidence-based.