Vedartham Kishore Kumar
BACKGROUND Pityriasis versicolor is one of the most common and recurring superficial fungal infections of the skin occurring in the patients attending the Dermatology Outpatient Department. Malassezia species are the causative organisms for the Pityriasis versicolor. Many different modalities of treatment are available to treat Pityriasis versicolor. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the drug, which is more therapeutically efficacious among topical luliconazole 1% cream versus topical ketoconazole 2% cream in the treatment of Pityriasis versicolor. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 70 patients with skin lesions of Pityriasis versicolor attending the Dermatology Outpatient Department, Government General Hospital, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, were selected to this study. These patients were divided into two groups (A and B) randomly with 35 patients in each group. The group A patients were treated with topical luliconazole 1% cream twice daily and group B patients were treated with topical ketoconazole 2% cream twice daily for 28 days. Clinical assessment and mycological (by KOH mount) assessment was done to all the patients in both the groups at the beginning and at the two follow up visits, first follow up on the 14th day and second follow up on the 28th day of this study to evaluate the comparative therapeutic efficacy of both these drugs. RESULTS At the first follow up (on 14th day), clinical and mycological (by KOH mount) assessment in both the groups showed KOH mount negativity of 81.82% and 69.70% of patients in the luliconazole-treated group and ketoconazole-treated group, respectively. At the second follow up (on 28th day), 96.77% and 72.41% of patients showed KOH mount negativity in the luliconazole-treated group and ketoconazole-treated group, respectively. No statistically significant difference of change in therapeutic efficacy was observed in between luliconazole and ketoconazole-treated groups at the first follow up (p>0.05), but statistically significant difference of change in the therapeutic efficacy of luliconazole-treated group was observed against ketoconazole-treated group at the second follow up (p<0.05). CONCLUSION Both topical luliconazole 1% cream and topical ketoconazole 2% cream are having nearly equal therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of Pityriasis versicolor when treated for 2 weeks, but topical luliconazole 1% cream is more therapeutically efficacious over topical ketoconazole 2% cream when treated for 4 weeks in the treatment of Pityriasis versicolor.
