Multicenter randomized comparative double-blind controlled clinical trial of the safety and efficacy of zinc gluconate versus minocycline hydrochloride in the treatment of inflammatory acne vulgaris.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Zinc and Minocycline in the context of acne.

To evaluate the place of zinc gluconate in relation to antibiotics in the treatment of acne vulgaris.

Why It Was Studied

In addition to tetracyclines, zinc may constitute an alternative treatment in inflammatory lesions of acne.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 332 patients taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers and adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Running at several centres spread the Zinc study over different clinics and patient groups.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Abdominal Pain, Acne Vulgaris, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Arthralgia, Dermatitis, Seborrheic, Gluconates and Hypersensitivity.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study of Zinc and Minocycline in 332 patients in people with acne.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2001 (Dermatology (Basel, Switzerland)), a journal based in Switzerland.

More context: the related Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc library page, Acne research.