Intramuscular Steroids in the Treatment of Dermatologic Disease: A Systematic Review.

IMPORTANCE

Intramuscular (IM) steroids can be used to treat a wide variety of dermatologic diseases. Although seemingly effective and safe, this form of corticosteroid therapy may be underused amongst dermatologists.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this review is to determine the evidence regarding the efficacy and side effect profile of intramuscular triamcinolone in the treatment of dermatologic disease.

EVIDENCE REVIEW: A PubMed search engine was used for this study. Inclusion criteria were studies that examined human subjects, reported clinical outcomes and side effects of intramuscular steroids for the treatment of dermatologic disease, cutaneous disease where steroids remain an accepted standard of care, studies published after 1980, and English language articles.

FINDINGS: A total of 62 papers were reviewed. Six papers met criteria. They looked at alopecia areata, (2) systemic lupus erythematosus (1), Behcets disease (1), and nail lichen planus (2). Collectively, the studies included 342 patients. Study types included case series (1), retrospective observational (2), randomized prospective (2), and double-blind placebo controlled (1) studies. In this systematic review, intramuscular steroids were found to have comparable efficacy and side effect profile alone or in comparison with other steroid modalities for the select number of dermatoses investigated.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: We conclude that intramuscular steroids can be regarded as having comparable efficacy to other steroid modalities in the treatment of steroid responsive dermatoses; and also appear to be safer in most instances with the exception of dysmenorrhea in females. Additional studies are greatly needed. <p><em>J Drugs Dermatol. 2018;17(3):323-329.</em></p>.