2007, Number 2
Dermatología Cosmética, Médica y Quirúrgica 2007; 5 (2)
Melasma: Consensus of the Mexican Working Group for the Study of Pigmentary Disorders
Arellano-Mendoza I, Arias-Gómez I, Barba-Gómez JF, Elizondo-Rodríguez A, García-Vargas A, Garza-Buentello E, Juárez-Navarrete L, León-Dorantes G, López-Ibarra M, Mercadillo-Pérez P, Muñoz-Hink H, Ocampo-Candiani J, Ortiz-Becerra Y, Podoswa-Ozerkovsky N, Ríos-Ávila ME, Rodríguez-Castellanos MA
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Language: Spanish
References: 14
Page: 112-122
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ABSTRACT
Melasma is an acquired hyperpigmentation of the face that represents one of the main causes of general practitioners and dermatologists consultation. Patients seek for medical advice for health and cosmetic reasons. Additionally, there is also the wrong belief that melasma could be related to hepatic or renal diseases. Its unspecific and multi-factorial etiology has lead to the use of a diversity of therapeutic alternatives that hinder an optimal sequence and drive to therapeutic failures that are time and money consuming for patients or health institutions. Furthermore, they have negative impact in the patient’s quality of life when their expectations of improvement are not fulfilled.This situation generates the need to define effective and safe therapeutic guidelines that can provide physicians with accurate elements for decision making, in order to obtain improvement of this condition, as well as to optimize economic resources. One of the strategies to provide physicians with tools that allow following a sequence of therapeutic alternatives is the development of guidelines and algorithms used nowadays in world-wide medical practice.
The value of the present guidelines developed by the Mexican Group for the Study of Pigmentary Disorders (Grupo Mexicano para el Estudio de los Trastornos Pigmentarios) is that they were elaborated based on the clinical experience in Mexican-mestizo patients and therefore applicable in similar populations. This effort constitutes a first step on the pursuit of a standard and integral treatment of melasma and, consequently, an improvement of medical care.
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