Biosystems and Environmental Engineering Research Group, Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zimbabwe, P.O. Box MP167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe. Electronic address: wgwenzi@agric.uz.ac.zw.
Diquafosol enhances fluid transfer and mucin secretion on ocular surface, which has been suggested as an effective treatment for dry eye disease (DED). The aim of the systematic review and meta-analys...
Relevant randomized controlled trials were obtained via search of electronic including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science. A random-effects model was used to pool the results after i...
A total of nine RCTs involving 1295 patients with DED were included in the meta-analysis. Compared to treatment with 0.1% HA, topical treatment with 3% diquafosol significantly improved the Ocular Sur...
Topical treatment with 3% diquafosol may be more effective than 0.1% HA for patients with DED. However, the long-term efficacy and tolerability of diquafosol still need to be determined....
Narrowband ultraviolet B (NB-UVB) phototherapy is commonly prescribed for patients with moderate-to-severe atopic eczema (AE). The efficacy of NB-UVB, however, has not yet properly been established, a...
A pragmatic, multicenter, PROBE trial will be performed with 1:1 randomization of 316 adult patients with moderate-to-severe AE who have inadequate disease control with topical therapy and who are eli...
The UPDATE trial aims to provide high-quality evidence regarding the (cost-)effectiveness and safety of NB-UVB phototherapy in moderate-to-severe AE patients. Challenges that are addressed in the prot...
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05704205. Registered on December 8, 2022....
Topical drugs are often used as first-line treatment for dermatological conditions. A within-person design may then be well adapted: it consists of randomizing lesions/body sites rather than patients,...
The aim of this review was to provide a methodological overview of within-person randomized trials (WP-RCTs) in dermatology....
We searched for eligible trials published between 2017 and 2021 in MEDLINE, Embase, and Central in dermatology journals and the 6 highest-impact-factor general medical journals. Two authors selected p...
From 1,034 articles identified, we included 54 WP-RCTs, mainly for acne vulgaris, psoriasis, actinic keratosis, and atopic dermatitis. In most of the trials, patients had only 2 lesions/body sites. In...
Our systematic review highlights that despite the publication of the CONSORT checklist extension for WP-RCTs in 2017, this design is rarely used, and when it is, there are methodological and reporting...
We aim to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of using laser and light combined with topical minoxidil for alopecia areata. We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, Chin...
Vulvar lichen sclerosus (LS) is a chronic debilitating inflammatory skin disease. Today, the gold standard is a life-long topical steroid treatment. Alternative options are highly desired. We present ...
We recruited 66 patients, 44 in the laser arm and 22 in the steroid arm. Patients with a physician-administered clinical LS score ≥ 4 were included. Participants received either four laser treatments ...
The findings of this trial have the potential to offer a novel treatment option for LS. The standardized Nd:YAG/Er:YAG laser settings and the treatment regime are presented in this paper....
NCT03926299....
Alopecia areata (AA) is a common autoimmune skin disease. Our study aimed to systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of compound glycyrrhizin (CG) combined with topical minoxidil therapy in tr...
We searched the PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP databases. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on CG combined with topical minoxidil therapy compared with topi...
11 RCTs and 1189 patients were included. Compared with topical minoxidil therapy alone, CG combined with topical minoxidil therapy was more effective at improving the clinical efficacy (RR = 1.36, 95%...
The current evidence indicates that CG combined with topical minoxidil therapy is effective and safe for AA. However, owing to the suboptimal quality of the included studies, more high-quality and lar...
The purpose was to identify and summarize the existing evidence on the efficacy and safety of the topical application of olive oil for preventing pressure ulcers (PUs). We included only randomized con...
To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of topical difamilast in mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis (AD)....
Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared topical difamilast with vehicle treatment for patients with AD were included. PubMed, Web of Science, Ovid Medline, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTri...
Five studies enrolling a total of 1009 patients with mild-to-moderate AD were identified. Compared with the topical vehicle, topical difamilast was associated with a significantly higher success rate ...
This meta-analysis suggests that topical difamilast is an effective and safe treatment for mild-to-moderate AD....
Melasma is a chronic relapsing skin condition. Laser therapy is a new advancement in treatment. Whether the topical application of tranexamic acid (TXA) increases the efficacy of laser therapy in mela...
Randomized controlled trials are used to estimate the causal effect of a treatment on a health outcome of interest in a patient population. Often the specified treatment in a randomized controlled tri...
We use causal reasoning to explain why randomized controlled trials of biomarker targets can arrive at conflicting or misleading conclusions. We describe four key threats to the validity of trials of ...
We illustrate these findings using evidence from 15 randomized controlled trials of blood pressure targets for management of hypertension. Randomized trials of blood pressure targets exhibit substanti...
Researchers should critically assess meta-analyses of trials of targets for variation in the types, distributions, and off-target effects of therapies studied. Trial investigators should release detai...
