OCULAR SIDE-EFFECTS ASSOCIATED WITH 13-CIS-RETINOIC ACID THERAPY FOR ACNE-VULGARIS - CLINICAL-FEATURES, ALTERATIONS OF TEARFILM AND CONJUNCTIVAL FLORA

Isotretinoin (13-cis-retinoic acid) is commonly used for the treatment of acne vulgaris. We included 55 patients in this prospective study, and inspected them before, while and after therapy with isotretinoin r egarding ocular side effects. Careful slit-lamp inspection, measuremen t of break-up-time and Schirmer-test and microbiological investigation s of the conjunctival flora were performed. While staphylococcus aureu s was cultured from the conjunctival sac before application of isotret inoin in 7.3%, this percentage increased to 61.8% during therapy. A pa thological decrease of break-up-time was realized in 69.1% of the case s, the development of blepharitis in 40%. But in spite of the alterati on of conjunctival flora, bacterial conjunctivitis developed in just 7 .3% of the cases. However, only 34.5% of the patients showed symptoms of a conjunctivitis sicca, in spite of the impressive diminution of br eak-uptime in so many cases, All ocular side effects of isotretinoin w ere treatable and disappeared completely within 1 month after stopping therapy.