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Abstract
Diaper dermatitis is one of the most common skin disorder during infancy. Different modality of treatment is suggested. Sucralfate acts as a physical barrier to irritants and has antibacterial activity. Encouraging reports of topical sucralfate effect on epithelialization of wounds along with its bacteriostatic property have led us to carry out a trial to evaluate its role as a topical agent in the treatment of diaper dermatitis and compare its efficacy with topical zinc oxide.
Methods A double blind randomized clinical trial was conducted from April 2008 to september 2009. Sucralfate and zinc oxide were formulated as 20% ointment with same excipients. All patients were randomly treated topically with eihter sucralfate (N=25) or zinc oxide (N=21) for 7 days. Diaper severity were obtained before treatment and days 3, 5, 7 by authors.
Results A total of 46 infants (54.3% femate and 45.7% male) entered the study. They had a mean age 4.4+/–6.5 months. The mean age, sex, frequency of diaper changing (per day) and severity of diaper rash had no statistically significant difference between two groups. Sucralfate 20% ointment was significantly superior in healing dermatitis at days 5, 7 (p<0.05 and 0.01 respectively and had significant shorter healing time (3.24+/–2.02 days) in comparison with zinc oxide 20% ointment (5.42+/– 2.39 days) (pvalue =0.002).
Conclusion Since sucralfete in topical formulations acts as a phsical barrier with proved safety and has no noticeble absorption it may become a potential treatment for diaper dermatitis.