Table 5.

RCTs of oral contraceptive pills (OCP) in the treatment of acne after 24 weeks

Reference	No of patients	Acne severity	Treatment	Reduction of inflammatory lesions, %	P value	Reduction of non-inflammatory lesions, %	P value	Total reduction of lesions, %	P value
Maloney et al27	OCP = 218	moderate	3 mg drospirenone/20 μg ethinyl estradiol vs placebo	50a	< 0.001c	42a	< 0.001c	46	< 0.001c
	placebo = 213			35		28		31
Thiboutot et al28	OCP = 96	moderate	100 μg of levonorgestrel/20 μg of ethinyl estradiol vs placebo	47	0.027b	25	0.098b	40	0.004b
	placebo = 105			33		13.5		23
Plewig et al29	OCP = 251	moderate	ethinyl estradiol 0.03 mg/chlormadinone acetate 2 mg vs placebo	64	< 0.05b	55	< 0.05b	n/a	n/a
	placebo = 126			45	0.03c	32	0.0006c
Leyden et al30	OCP = 185	moderate	ethinyl estradiol 20 μg/100 μg levonorgestrel vs placebo	32	0.081b	13	0.0485b	23	0.0045b
	placebo = 186			22		4		9
Lucky et al31	OCP = 79	moderate	ethinyl estradiol 0.035 mg/norgestimate 0.180, 0.215, or 0.250 mg vs placebo	62	0.0001c	43	0.0003c	53	0.0001c
	placebo = 81			39		13.6		27
Palombo-Kinne et al32	EE/DNG = 525	mild–moderate	ethinylestradiol 0.030 mg/dienogest 2 mg vs ethinylestradiol 0.035 mg/cyproterone acetate 2 mg vs placebo	66	< 0.05 EE/DNG vs placebo and non-inferiority of EE/DNG to EE/CPA	n/a	n/a	55	< 0.05 EE/DNG vs placebo and non-inferiority of EE/DNG to EE/CPA
	EE/CPA = 537			65				54
	placebo = 264			49.5				39

Notes:

^adata estimated from graph;

^bbetween group comparisons;

^cmean relative difference to baseline.

Abbreviations: CPA, cyproterone acetate; DNG, dienogest; EE, ethinylestradiol; n/a, data not reported.