Acne Vulgaris Medicament Management in Indonesia and the Efficacy of Various Therapeutic Regimens

BACKGROUND: Acne vulgaris (AV) is an inflammatory disease of the pilosebaceous unit with various pleomorphic lesions. In Indonesia, AV is the third most common case that makes patients come to seek treatment at the Hospital. The diagnosis can be established clinically and the AV grading system can be used to assess the severity. Until now, there are many AV grading systems and guidelines for AV. At Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital uses Lehmann’s grading system.

AIM: The aims of this review were to summarize the current guidelines for AV therapy in Indonesia and assess the efficacy of various therapeutic regimens.

METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive literature search using the search engines PubMed, Scopus, Research Gate, and Google Scholar in the time frame 2015 until 2022 with a total of 431 articles, and 29 studies met the inclusion criteria. The studies reported a total of 8245 participants.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: AV management may differ according to the conditions of each country. There are two therapeutic modalities for AV medication management, topical and systemic. The choice of therapy must be adjusted to the patient’s needs, AV severity, and drug efficacy, taking into account the risk and benefit factors of the drug, as well as psychosocial factors.

CONCLUSION: Management of AV is still a challenge because the therapy in different countries is not the same. It is necessary to know the etiopathogenesis, understand patient’s condition and the severity of AV, also know the efficacy of AV therapy, and consider treatment recommendations based on existing guidelines so that the treatment results can be achieved optimally.