St. John's Wort Photodynamic Therapy

A Randomized Split-face Study of Photodynamic Therapy With St. John's Wort Versus Indole-3-acetic Acid for the Treatment of Acne

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT05073211

Acronym

SJWPDT

Enrollment

Registered

2021-10-11

Start date

2020-06-01

Completion date

2021-09-01

Last updated

2021-10-11

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Acne

Brief summary

The investigators aimed to evaluated the efficacy and safety of SJW-PDT compared to indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-PDT in the treatment of acne. The investigators also investigated the skin rejuvenating effects of SJW-PDT.

Interventions

PROCEDUREPDT

A 630 nm red light and a 520 nm green light of the light-emitting diode (LED) device (Nouvo-GB®) with an intensity of 35 mW⁄cm2 was simultaneously illuminated for 10 minutes (a total light dose of 21 J/cm2). Participants received a total of four treatments at 1-week intervals and were followed up 1 and 4 weeks after the last treatment.

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE (Subject, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)

Intervention model description

a double-blind split-face randomized controlled design

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

25 Years to 60 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

* patients with mild to moderate facial acne * between 25 and 60 years old

Exclusion criteria

* history of oral retinoid treatment with the past 6 months * history of oral antibiotics, topical acne treatment, or skin rejuvenation treatment such as lasers and chemical peeling within the month before the start of the study

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
acne lesions	1 and 4 weeks after the last treatment	change in the number of acne lesions after the treatment

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
sebum secretion rate (μg/cm2)	1 and 4 weeks after the last treatment	Sebum secretion rate was measured with Sebumeter SM 815®.

Other

Measure	Time frame	Description
erythema index (arbitrary unit)	1 and 4 weeks after the last treatment	The erythema index (EI) was measured with Mexameter MX 1® (Courage & Khazaka)
skin texture, wrinkles (arbitrary unit)	1 and 4 weeks after the last treatment	The skin texture and wrinkles were measured with an Antera 3D® camera (Miravex Limited, Dublin, Ireland).

Countries

South Korea

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026