Efficacy and safety of carboxytherapy for treatment of striae: a clinical trial study

Background: Striae is a common condition that is relatively difficult to treat. Recently, carboxytherapy was proposed as a treatment modality. This study aimed to evaluate the therapeutic effect of carboxytherapy in patients with striae. Methods: This was a pilot clinical study. Patients were treated with 10 sessions of carboxytherapy every week. The patients were photographed at the onset of the treatment course, before each treatment session, and three months after the last ones. Two dermatologists compared the images of each patient before and three months after treatment and evaluated the treatment response based on the following scores: I, no improvement (0%); II, poor (1% to 25%); III, fair (26% to 50%); IV, good (51% to 75%); and V, excellent improvement (76% to 100%). Furthermore, patients’ satisfaction with therapy outcome was recorded on a scale of 0 to 10. Results: 15 patients were enrolled in this study; 2 (13.4%) were male and 13 (86.6%) were female. Three patients (20%) showed good response, one (6.7%) had a relatively good response, two showed (13.3%) poor response, and seven (46.6%) had no response to treatment. Analysis of the association of carboxytherapy outcome with different patients’ characteristics showed no statistically significant correlation (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Although carboxytherapy therapy did not result in a significant response in the majority of our patients, it is somehow capable of improving the striae in some patients. Further studies with bigger sample sizes may be required to ensure the efficacy of this modality in the treatment of striae.