Should isotretinoin be stopped prior to surgery? A Critically Appraised Topic

Critically Appraised Topics in the British Journal of Dermatology : response from Jonathan Batchelor and Phyllis Spuls, section editors for BJD 's ‘Putting Papers into Practice’

“…SLADDEN Department of Dermatology, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia E-mail: m.sladden@doctors.org.uk DOI: 10.1111/bjd.13045 DEAR EDITOR, We were very pleased to see the correspondence from Dr Mike Sladden 1 regarding the Critically Appraised Topic (CAT) that we published in the BJD recently. 2 We agree that it is a very helpful CAT, addressing a question that is commonly encountered in dermatological practice. The inclusion of the patient's perspective is a good way of keeping the CAT grounded in the principles of shared decision making (although it is not a mandatory part of a CAT as such).…”

“…For this reason, we introduced CATs as part of the Putting Papers into Practice section of the BJD, and until now we have published four CATs on a range of topics including Mohs surgery vs. wide local excision for dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, house dust mite avoidance for atopic eczema, intralesional triamcinolone for alopecia areata, and transport media for direct immunofluorescence skin biopsies. [2][3][4][5] As far as we know, we are currently the only dermatology journal that publishes CATs.…”

Patient engagement with the BJD : why and how?

“…For example, some patients have been authors on BJD editorials and commentaries . A BJD Critically Appraised Topic published in 2014 included two paragraphs giving the patient's perspective . Additionally, the BJD was the first dermatology journal to create plain language summaries of original articles .…”

Introducing the new Evidence-Based Dermatology section

“…on the question: ‘Should isotretinoin be stopped prior to surgery? A critically appraised topic’ . For further guidance on how to write a CAT see the paper by Callander et al .…”