RESUMO
Background: focal hyperhidrosis is not rare, affecting nearly 3% of the population. This condition is often socially and professionally debilitating, leading to significant quality of life impairment. Hence, its treatment is an issue of importance. To determine the comparative efficacy of tap water iontophoresis to iontophoresis with atropine
Materials and Methods: we undertook a single-blinded right-left clinical trial in 16 patients with palmoplantar hyperhidrosis attending to dermatology clinic of Loqman Hospital during 2006. We compared the efficacy and the duration of symptom relief following iontophoresis with atropine to iontophoresis with tap water according to both objective [Iodine Test] and subjective [patients' judgment] criteria
Results: therapeutic efficacy was 81.25% after 5 weeks and 100% after 10 weeks of iontophoresis. Following treatment with tap water iontophoresis and atropine iontophoresis, patients reported similar improvement in two hands. Atropine iontophoresis was superior to tap water only after five sessions; however it was not statistically significant [P> 0.05]
Conclusion: we postulate that the similar efficacy of atropine iontophoresis when compared with tap water iontophoresis relates to mechanism of action of iontophoresis which is not affected by atropine, additionally