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Updated: Jan 5, 2026

A Mouse Model of Mechanotransduction-driven, Human-like Hypertrophic Scarring
Published on: November 29, 2024
Comparative Efficacy and Safety of Common Therapies in Keloids and Hypertrophic Scars: A Systematic Review and
Yawei Bao1, Shanshan Xu2, Zhipeng Pan3
1Department of Plastic Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, 210 JiXi Road, Hefei, Anhui, China.
Objectives:
At present, there are many therapies for treating keloids and hypertrophic scars, but there is still a lack of treatments that are relatively balanced in efficacy and safety. The study aims to evaluate comprehensively efficacy and safety of common therapies in keloids and hypertrophic scars.
Methods:
The literature search was conducted up to May 2019. The traditional meta-analysis was performed on 17 therapies. Bayesian network meta-analysis was conducted on the four most common treatments. The outcome indicators were the numbers of patients with good-to-excellent effect, Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS) and adverse events.
Results:
There was no significant difference in the efficacy of triamcinolone acetonide (TAC) compared with other monotherapies except for silicone gel sheet and neodymium-yttrium-aluminum-garnet in primary indicator. The combination therapies were superior to TAC, and the results were consistent after the pooled analysis (RR = 0.522, 95% CI 0.332-0.823). The level of VSS in TAC group was higher than that in 5-flurouracil (5-FU) and TAC + 5-FU group, but lower than that in verapamil (VER) group. And the patients treated with TAC were less safe than those treated with verapamil (P = 0.013). Surface under cumulative ranking ranked verapamil and TAC + 5-FU as the favorable efficacy therapies in terms of primary indicator and ranked TAC + 5-FU as the best therapy for VSS, while VER was ranked as the worst.
Conclusion:
This meta-analysis showed that TAC + 5-FU may be the most effective therapy, while verapamil may be a better therapeutic strategy for safety.
Level Of Evidence Iii:
This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

