Langtry 1997

Methods	RCT of body parts (face halves)
Participants	Dx: homosexual men with advanced AIDS having facial SD; physician diagnosis implied within context
Interventions	Intervention: lithium succinate 8% ointment applied to one-half of the face twice daily for 8 weeks (n = 12) Control: ointment base applied similarly to the opposite half of the face (n = 12)
Outcomes	Erythema and scaling clearance rates. We used the following MD and P values from the paired t-test to calculate the MD (100-mm VAS score) and the SE to be put into RevMan using the general inverse variance method. Erythema short term: Int 14.4, Control 18.3; P value 0.126 Erythema long term: Int 12.2, Control 18.4; P value 0.026 Scaling short term: Int 12.7, Control 17.7; P value 0.016 Scaling long term: Int 11.4, Control 22.0; P value 0.095
Notes	Study was conducted in the UK; COI: grant received from Scotia Pharmaceuticals; side effect was reported for a single participant
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not reported
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not reported
Baseline comparable?	Low risk	Each participant was his own control
Patient blinded?	Low risk	Use of identical containers
Provider blinded?	Low risk	Use of identical containers
Outcome assessor blinded?	Low risk	Use of identical containers
Co-interventions avoided?	High risk	"... and remained on all other medication which included azidothymidine (AZT) for seven patients"
Compliance acceptable?	Unclear risk	Not reported
Drop-out acceptable?	Low risk	"During the first week of treatment one patient died of an opportunistic infection and two others dropped out ... Ten patients were thus available for assessment"
Selective outcome reporting acceptable?	Low risk	All outcomes were reported
ITT?	Unclear risk	"The scores for each assessment were expressed as a percentage of baseline and the mean differences between the percentage changes for active and placebo treatment were assessed ..."