[Comparison of Atorvastatin with placebo in the treatment of paederus dermatitis]

ABSTRACT

Paederus dermatitis is a blistering disorder of skin caused by a small insect called paederus transmitted by displaced beetles of order Coleoptera. There are limited studies on classical treatment of this disease. The aim of this study was to compare therapeutic effects of atorvastatin with placebo in the treatment of paederus dermatitis. This was a randomized double-blind clinical trial and was carried out in the hospital and clinics of Sari and Neka cities for 6 months. Experimental group [15 patients] received atorvasatin and control group [15 patients] received placebo. All the patients were examined at the first, seventh and fourteenth days after treatment. Data were recorded in a questionnaire for every patient. Complete recovery and failure of treatment were compared in both groups. Data were introduced into SPSS software and analyzed by means of X2 test. A total of 15 patients were treated, 10 patients from Sari and 5 from Neka cities. Most of the patients were between 26-45 years of age. Most of patients were married; all of them educated, and were civil servants or had private jobs. Full recovery rate of the patients was 93.33% in the second visit [seventh day]. The rest of the patients recovered in the third visit [fourteenth day]. 30.43% of the patients had lesions on the neck, and size of the lesions was between 6-10 cm2 in 42.85% of cases. There was a significant difference in recovery rate between experimental and placebo groups [P<0.05]. In this study, all patients were recovered completely within 14 days, whereas only 13.3 percent were recovered in control group