Tacrolimus vs. clobetasol propionate in the treatment of facial cutaneous lupus erythematosus: a randomized, double-blind, bilateral comparison study

Efficacy of tacrolimus 0.1% ointment in cutaneous lupus erythematosus: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, vehicle-controlled trial

“…To date, the only randomized, double-blind study compared 0.1% tacrolimus ointment with 0.05% clobetasol in 15 patients with facial CLE. 17 Both substances were found to be effective in the treatment of erythema and desquamation, whereas clobetasol was less safe in terms of inducing telangiectasia. Hence, although several further case reports demonstrated efficacy of calcineurin inhibitors in CLE, a vehicle-controlled, randomized, multicenter trial was necessary to provide strong evidence that tacrolimus ointment is an effective non-steroidal alternative treatment for the different subtypes of the disease.…”

“…eblue.org). [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Most of the published studies have an open-label design, involving only a small number of patients and no vehicle or control group. To date, the only randomized, double-blind study compared 0.1% tacrolimus ointment with 0.05% clobetasol in 15 patients with facial CLE.…”

Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Discoid Lupus Erythematosus

“…Walker et al 24 reported 2 patients with severe recalcitrant chronic discoid lupus that had not responded to potent topical steroids or antimalarials but dramatically responded to topical tacrolimus ointment in one case and a combination of clobetasol ointment and tacrolimus in the other. 24 Recently, Tzung et al 25 conducted a randomized double-blind study in which 20 patients were enrolled but only 11 women and 7 men (13 with malar rash of SLE, 4 with DLE, and 1 with SCLE) completed the study. All patients had facial cutaneous LE and were instructed to apply 0.1% tacrolimus ointment twice daily to the affected areas on one side of the face and 0.05% clobetasol propionate ointment on the other side; this was randomly assigned for each patient.…”

Efficacy and Safety of Pimecrolimus Cream (1%) in the Treatment of Discoid Lupus Erythematosus

“…The present study had an open-label design and involved only a small number of patients and no control group, therefore double-blind, placebo controlled studies are needed in order to confirm our data. This work was supported in various other studies conducted across India 13,14 .…”

“…Such treatment usually consists of a prolonged course of potent glucocorticosteroids. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . The efficacy of pimecrolimus in DLE has not undergone the same scrutiny, but the studies performed to date have shown encouraging results 2,15,16 .…”