Apr. 26, 2001 After a half-century of looking at everything from
Accutane to zinc, dermatologists still can't prove which acne
treatments and drugs work best, a team at Johns Hopkins
Children's Center finds after combing the scientific literature.
"One of the key questions for dermatologists has been, ‘How
should we be treating acne in any given case?'" says
pediatrician and medical informatics specialist Harold Lehmann,
M.D., Ph.D. "Here we are in the 21st century and we still don't
have a clear answer to that question." Lehmann and his co-
authors document the dilemma in a so-called evidence report for
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The reports are designed
to give the public state-of-the-science information about
important health topics. AHRQ asked Hopkins to analyze the
relevant scientific literature and identify the best drugs for
treating acne and to determine the strength of acne research
findings based on predetermined criteria. The