PEER-REVIEW | DERMATOLOGY | worse than before, less dry, fairer, more radiant, or no
Table 3 Skin assessment at first visit
SKIN
COMPLAINT Dry, dull, tan Dry, dull Dry, tan Dull, tan
NUMBER OF PATIENTS
58 115 34 12
Dry 36 Dull 25 Tan 3
change (Table 1). One month after the sixth visit, a research assistant contacted the patients over the phone to get their feedback on the entire treatment. Patients were asked to score their satisfaction level on their skin improvement based on a score of 1 to 7, 1 being the least satisfied and 7 being the most satisfied.
Subjective definition of skin parameters as understood by patients Patients commonly perceived dry skin as having fine creases/wrinkles on the skin, feeling dry, feeling itchiness easily, mild peeling, scattered erythematous patches or having scratch marks appear on the limbs easily. They commonly complained of darker tanned skin, in
relation to their previous lighter skin tone. Patients commonly described dull skin as sallow and
yellowish in tone. They wanted a more radiant skin tone, which they describe as whitish-pink, baby-like skin.
Table 4 Feedback at second to sixth visit
PATIENT FEEDACK
NUMBER OF PATIENTS AT RESPECTIVE VISIT
2ND 3RD 4TH 5TH 6TH VISIT
VISIT VISIT
improvement Skin less dry 168
Skin more radiant
Skin fairer
60 38
No changes 77 VISIT Noticeable 206 246 259 264 189 194 200 202
79 71
37
97 85
24
118 93
19
161 144
13
VISIT 270
The glutathione powder used for
injection was under the brand Tationil® 600 mg/4 ml.
Table 5 Satisfaction level after six injections
PATIENT
FEEDBACK OF SCORE
1 6 2 4 3 20 4 64 5 90 6 64 7 35
MEAN SCORE 4.99
Patients were asked to score on the scale of 1-7
1 being the least satisfied while 7 being most satisfied
26 October 2015 |
prime-journal.com
NUMBER PATIENTS
Results A total of 313 patients were enrolled in the study. However, 30 patients were excluded because the interval between injections was more than 10 days. Thus, the total number of patients included in the present study was 283. The median age of the 283 patients was 33 years old and 269 were female (Table 2). The majority of the patients were Chinese (n=228, 80.6%), while 30 (10.6%) were Malay, 10 (3.5%) were Indian, and 15 (5.3%) were of other ethnicities. During the first visit, most patients (n=115) complained of dry and dull skin, followed by 58 patients complaining of dry, dull, and tanned skin (Table 3). During the second visit, patients were asked to feedback on how they
felt about their skin over the period of time from after the first injection up to the second visit at the clinic. A total of 206 (72.8%) patients reported noticeable improvement, their skin was less dry, more radiant, fairer or combinations. Of the 206 patients, most (n=168) reported that their skin was less dry, 60 reported more radiant skin, and 38
reported fairer skin. In total, 77 (27.2%) patients claim no noticeable improvement (Table 4). From the second to sixth visit, the number of patients that reported noticeable skin
improvement increased from 206 (72.8%) to 270 (95.4%). At the sixth visit, the most common skin improvement was skin being less dry, followed by more
radiant and fairer. At the sixth visit, only 13 (4.6%) patients did not notice any improvement. One month after the sixth injection, the feedback score obtained from the patients showed a median score
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