Effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine preparations for facial seborrheic dermatitis: case reports

Heliyon. 2022 Dec 10;8(12):e12338. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12338. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Facial seborrheic dermatitis is a chronic skin condition that presents as erythematous scaly dermatitis and has a detrimental effect on the patient's quality of life. The purpose of this article is to present successful treatment of two male patients with face seborrheic dermatitis, one aged 50 and the other aged 56, who developed facial seborrheic dermatitis following facial erythema eruptions. We diagnosed it as face seborrheic dermatitis based on the patients' initial appearances and the location of the erythema during the episode. The previous doctor diagnosed the patients' facial symptoms as related to allergies or infections; therefore, they were treated with long-term anti-inflammatory (tacrolimus) and antiallergic medications (loratadine) throughout the disease's early stages. Erythema of the face was recurring and recalcitrant. Their facial skin lesions vanished after one week of Chinese herbal medicine treatment along with warming yang therapy. The application of the principle of warming the kidney yang to the treatment of face seborrheic dermatitis produced favorable results. This may be an advantageous adjunct to the treatment of recurrent seborrheic dermatitis of the face. High-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray mass spectrometry (HPLC/ESI-MS) was used to determine the primary components of the Chinese herbal formula "adjusted Shen-Liu-Wei (ASLW)," which has six natural substances as its primary components. As a result, we believe that the Chinese herbal compound ASLW might be a viable alternative for symptom relief and successful treatment of face seborrheic dermatitis.

Keywords: Case report; Facial seborrheic dermatitis (FSD); Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM); Warming yang therapy.

Publication types

  • Case Reports