Conditions: Actinic Keratoses
Keywords: Combination treatment Imiquimod Cryotherapy
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 27
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to determine if use of topical imiquimod cream after cryotherapy of actinic keratoses reduces the total number of lesions (those treated with cryotherapy and new ones) at follow-up.

Detailed description:
Actinic keratoses are common skin lesions associated with excess sun exposure. Over time, there is a small risk a lesion may progress to skin cancer. Since one can not predict which actinic keratosis will progress, the standard of care is to treat the lesions. The most commonly used method to treat actinic keratoses in the United States is with cryotherapy, which uses intense cold to freeze and destroy the lesions. Efficacy appears to be related to how long one freezes the lesion, but increasing the freeze time may result in increased pain and/or skin pigment changes after treatment.

Cryotherapy is a provider-administered "focal" treatment that only treats the lesions that are frozen. There may be early actinic keratoses in the skin surrounding treated lesions that are not easily seen; these may progress over time to visible lesions. There several patient-administered topical treatments for actinic keratoses that are applied to a treatment area or "field" rather than to specific lesions. Imiquimod 5% cream is one such treatment, and is approved in the United States for the treatment of AKs with a dosing regimen of 1 packet applied 2 times per week to a 25 cm2 area 2x/week for 16 weeks.

The study will use a split-face design (one side of face treated and the other side untreated) to explore whether a 4-week course of topical imiquimod 5% cream after cryotherapy of actinic keratoses reduces the total number of lesions (those treated with cryotherapy and new ones) in the treatment area at follow-up.

Arms:
arm 1: Imiquimod 5% cream, 1 packet (250 mg cream), applied to left or right treatment area on the face and/or balding scalp arm 2: No treatment of treatment area on the other half of the face and/or balding scalp

Interventions: intervention 1: imiquimod 5% cream
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 1 packet (250 mg cream) 3 times per week for 4 weeks

Protocol document: