Prescribing Patterns of Oral Antibiotics and Isotretinoin for Acne in a Colorado Hospital System: Retrospective Cohort Study.
Madeline J AdelmanTorunn Elise SivesindIsaac WeberGrace N BosmaCamille J HochheimerChante Aksut KarimkhaniLisa M SchillingJohn S BarbieriRobert Paul DellavallePublished in: JMIR dermatology (2023)
Minocycline was the most frequently prescribed antibiotic for the treatment of acne in this study cohort. From 2015 to 2019, there was no significant change in the number of antibiotic prescriptions over time. Men were significantly more likely to receive both oral antibiotics and isotretinoin than female patients. Multiple factors could be contributing to this discrepancy, including the burden of iPLEDGE, additional systemic treatment options for female patients, and the difference in acne severity across sexes. We could not determine the difference in severity of acne between male and female patients in our cohort, and further research is needed to ascertain the variation across sexes.