Association of serum hormone levels with acne vulgaris: Low estradiol level can be a pathogenetic factor in female acne

• Main Author: Neslihan Akdogan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Our Dermatology Online 2018-07-01
• Series: Nasza Dermatologia Online
• Subjects: : Acne vulgaris; Estradiol; Female
• Online Access: http://www.odermatol.com/issue-in-html/2018-3-4-acne/

Background: Acne vulgaris is a chronic disease with a multifactorial pathogenesis. Speculative data has been shown concerning acne vulgaris and hormones, obesity, inflammatory, metabolic disorders. Aims: Our study aimed to evaluate hormone levels, inflammatory, metabolic parameters of patients with acne vulgaris. Materials and Methods: 136(male/female:42/94) participants including 68 patients and 68 age and sex-matched controls were enrolled retrospectively. Age, gender, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, serum lipid profile (SLP), fasting blood sugar (FBS), C-reactive protein (CRP) and red cell distribution width (RDW) parameters were evaluated for patients and controls. Patients were questioned about the type and duration of acne, previous treatments, presence of acne vulgaris and other types of acne in first-degree relatives. Females(47patients,47controls) were evaluated for follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), progesterone (PRO), estradiol (EST), prolactin (PRL) and total testosterone (TT) levels collected on the early follicular phase of menstruative cycle. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between patients and controls regarding BMI, SBP, DBP, SLP, FBS, CRP, RDW parameters (all p values>0.05). Moreover, serum FSH, LH, PRO, PRL, TT levels showed no statistically significant difference between female patients and female controls (all p values>0.05). However, female patients had statistically significant lower levels of serum EST than female controls. Conclusion: Low serum EST levels can be observed in female acne patients. Further investigation is required to define the association between serum EST and acne. This may also bring a new approach to the treatment of female acne vulgaris by estrogen containing hormone therapies.