Effect of Intense Pulsed Light Combined With 3% Tranexamic Acid for Facial Erythema Associated With Acne Vulgaris and Rosacea

BACKGROUND: Current treatment options for facial erythema associated with acne and rosacea include oral and topical treatments. Physical modalities are also commonly used recently. Combination therapy usually works better than a single therapy. There are few studies on the therapeutic effect of IPL combined with TXA on facial erythema. OBJECTIVE: To study the efficacy of intense pulsed light combined with 3% tranexamic acid in the treatment of facial erythema associated with acne and rosacea. METHODS: A total of 56 patients were included in the study. They were randomly divided into the observation group and the control group, with 28 cases in each group. The observation group was treated with intense pulsed light combined with 3% tranexamic acid for external use, while the control group was treated with intense pulsed light only. The clinical efficacy, erythema degree, and skin disease quality of life index score before and after treatment were observed in the two groups, and the results were compared. RESULTS: After treatment, both groups showed improvement; the observation group exhibited a significantly higher overall effective rate than the control group (p < 0.05). The scores of erythema index and skin quality of life index in the observation group were lower than those in the control group, and the differences were statistically significant (p < 0.05). There were no obvious adverse reactions in both groups. CONCLUSION: Intense pulsed light combined with 3% tranexamic acid can effectively improve the degree of acne and rosacea erythema without serious adverse effects.