The Initial Exploration of Polidocanol Sclerotherapy for the Treatment of Axillary Osmidrosis: A Retrospective Study

Axillary osmidrosis (AO) is a strong, unpleasant odor that originates from the apocrine axillary glands. Treatments of AO include surgical treatment and nonsurgical treatment. The surgical procedure yields effective results with a low recurrence rate but requires a longer recovery time and has more postoperative complications. Nonsurgical treatments are minimally invasive and safe, but short-term recurrence may occur in some cases.

Polidocanol sclerotherapy was first described for management of AO. This retrospective study explored the clinical efficacy in relieving symptom of AO assessed by AO severity using the axillary osmidrosis grading system and safety of polidocanol sclerotherapy in treating AO.

This retrospective study included 25 patients with AO single-site study, with 12 patients receiving polidocanol (1%) sclerotherapy (the polidocanol group) and 13 receiving botulinum toxin A (BTX-A) injection (the BTX-A group). The short-term efficacy (7 days after injection), the long-term efficacy (6 months after injection), the recurrence rate, and complications were compared between the 2 groups. A p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The short-term efficacies of polidocanol sclerotherapy and BTX-A injection were 100% and 69.2%, which was not clinically significant (p > .05), whereas their long-term efficacies were 100% and 46.2%, respectively (p < .05). The recurrence rates in the polidocanol and BTX-A groups were 25.0% and 84.6%, respectively (p < .05). The complications did not differ significantly between the 2 groups (p > .05). Although the short-term efficacy and complications were comparable between the 2 groups, the long-term efficacy of polidocanol sclerotherapy was superior to BTX-A injection. The polidocanol group has a lower recurrence rate than the BTX-A group.

Polidocanol sclerotherapy may provide an effective and safe treatment with longer efficacy compared to toxin, which is an effective and safe option for AO treatment.