Plasma exeresis shows promising results in seborrheic keratoses treatment study

A randomized controlled trial comparing plasma exeresis and cryotherapy for treating seborrheic keratoses (SK) found both methods to be effective, however, plasma exeresis showed a significant advantage in achieving complete clearance of SK lesions within 6 weeks and after 2 sessions, compared to cryotherapy.

The study enrolled 35 male participants. At the 3-week mark, 37.1% of lesions treated with plasma exeresis exhibited clearance, surpassing cryotherapy’s 17.1%. While not statistically significant (P = 0.06), this trend suggested a potential advantage for plasma exeresis.

Out of the remaining 28 lesions at the 6-week interval, 57.1% treated with plasma exeresis achieved clearance, in contrast to cryotherapy’s 20.7%. This was statistically significant (P = 0.005).

The study examined physician assessment scale scores, revealing a substantial reduction in both treatment groups during the second follow-up. In the plasma group, the score decreased from 0.91 ± 0.89 to 0.5 ± 0.64, while the cryotherapy group experienced a drop from 1.4 ± 0.84 to 1.1 ± 0.72. These findings suggest notable improvements in both techniques.

In terms of safety, no significant differences were observed between the groups. Notably, erythema and hypo pigmentation emerged as the most common complications, with the plasma and cryotherapy groups reporting rates of 52.63% and 38.46%, respectively.

Reference
Noorbakhsh M, Kalantari Y, Ghasemi E, et al. Comparing the efficacy of plasma exeresis and cryotherapy for the treatment of seborrheic keratosis: A randomized controlled trial. Skin Res Technol. 2023;29(8):e13429. doi: 10.1111/srt.13429. PMID: 37632194; PMCID: PMC10374986.