Atopic Dermatitis: a Short Summary
Cysteamine cream as a new skin depigmenting product
Hsu C.1, Ahmadi S.2, Pourahmad M.3, Ali Mahdi H.4,.
1 Centre Medical du Lignon Geneva, Switzerland
2, 3 : Jahrom Universty Medical school, Jahrom, Iran.
4: Global Dermatology Information Portal, Royal Bahrain Hospital, Bahrain
- Cysteamine hydrochloride (β-mercaptoethylamine hydrochloride) has been known to be a potent depigmenting molecule for 5 decades. Despite its strong depigmenting effect, shown to be more important than hydroquinone in vivo, cysteamine was never developed into a depigmenting product due to the very offensive odor it produced in topical preparations. Recently, a new technology has become available permitting to considerably reduce the odor of cysteamine in cream conditions. Cysteamine cream was evaluated in our studies for its depigmenting activity.
- 40 female patients with epidermal melasma were treated daily for 6 weeks by cysteamine cream. Before-after dermatoscopic images were taken and chromametric evaluations were performed at the beginning and at the end of the trial.
- Cysteamine cream showed a considerable efficacy in the treatment of epidermal melasma confirmed by both evaluation methods.
- Previous cell culture studies confirmed that cysteamine acts through melanogenesis inhibition and not melanocytotoxicity to depigment cultured melanocytes.
- Conclusion: Cysteamine is a non-melanocytotoxic and non-mutagenic molecule. Cysteamine cream, made usable by the new technology for the first time, has a strong depigmenting action in vivo and might be used as a depigmenting product in near future.
September 2012 – 17th Meeting of the European Society for Pigment Cell Research (ESPCR) – Geneva, Switzerland
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Adapted for the online version
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