Efficacy of Fire Needle Therapy Combined with Doxycycline Hydrochloride in the Management of Moderate-to-Severe Acne Vulgaris: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE

Fire needle therapy has shown promise in treating acne vulgaris (AV), improving facial lesions and patient quality of life. This study aims to investigate the effects of combining fire needle therapy with doxycycline hydrochloride tablets (DHT) on the Global Acne Grading System (GAGS), the échelle d'évaluation clinique des cicatrices d'acné (ECCA) grading scale, the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), and the serum levels of inflammatory factors interleukin-17 (IL-17), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in patients with moderate-to-severe AV.

METHODS

70 patients with moderate-to-severe AV were randomly assigned to the control group (n=35) to receive oral DHT treatment once a day and the intervention group (n=35) to be treated with fire needle therapy on the basis of DHT once a week. The total treatment duration for both groups was 8 weeks. Therapeutic efficacy was evaluated at the 4-week and 8-week marks. The primary outcome measure evaluated was the GAGS score. The secondary outcome measures included the ECCA score, the DLQI score, and the serum levels of the inflammatory factors IL-17, TNF-α, and IL-6.

RESULTS

Compared to baseline data, both groups exhibited marked improvements in skin lesions at both the 4-week and 8-week treatment marks. Significant reductions were observed in the GAGS, ECCA, and DLQI scores, as well as in the serum levels of the inflammatory factors IL-17, TNF-α, and IL-6. Notably, the intervention group demonstrated significantly greater improvements than the control group at both the 4-week and 8-week assessments.

CONCLUSION

An 8-week regimen of fire needle therapy combined with DHT improved lesion severity, scar symptoms, quality of life, and serum inflammatory cytokine levels in patients with moderate-to-severe AV compared to DHT monotherapy.