Acne treatment efficacy of intense pulsed light photodynamic therapy with topical licochalcone A, l-carnitine, and decanediol: A spilt-face, double-blind, randomized controlled trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of L-Carnitine in the context of acne, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Depending on disease severity, standard acne treatments can vary from topical to systemic therapy.

However, poor compliance caused by adverse events and antibiotic resistance is a major cause of treatment failure.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 26 women were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults and adults, both men and women.

Twenty-nine volunteers, aged 21-39 years (26 women and 3 men, mean age 29.41 ± 5.24 years), with mild to severe facial acne, were enrolled.

Each subject's face sides were randomized in a split-face manner to either receive PDT (IPL with a 400-720 nm cut-off filter, at 4 sessions with two-week intervals) combined with the active formulation cream twice daily for 10 weeks on one face side; or PDT and the vehicle cream on the other side, with the same treatment protocol.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and double-blind.

The women were allocated by chance, so the L-Carnitine group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the women and researchers unaware of who received L-Carnitine.

The timeline in the abstract includes 10 weeks.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acne Vulgaris, Carnitine, Chalcones, Face, Fatty Alcohols, Photochemotherapy and Skin Cream.

Author keywords: decanediol, intense pulsed light, l-carnitine, licochalcone A and photodynamic therapy.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of L-Carnitine in 26 women in people with acne over 10 weeks.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2020 (Journal of cosmetic dermatology), a journal based in England.

More context: the L-Carnitine compound page, Acne research.