Acne a Growing Problem in Pre-teens

It is increasingly common for clinicians to see pre-adolescent patients present with acne, and they can look to various therapies to treat this early-onset acne, according to the Medical Director of AvantDerm in Toronto, Canada.”There has been a downward shift (in the age of presentation of acne),” according to Davindra Singh M.D., F.R.C.P.C., who spoke to colleagues about treating acne in younger patients during a session at Dermatology Update 2015 (Toronto). “Children aged nine or 10 are treated the same way as teens or adults (with acne),” he says.He points to recent research involving 1,277 children which found 41.6% of those aged seven to nine had acne while more than three quarters of those aged 10 to 12 had acne.1 Indeed, 12 is no longer regarded as the lower end of the age range in terms of acne presentation.2 The early presentation is also a predictor of worse disease in the future and the potential for scarring.Antibiotic use in kidsDr. Singh will avoid, however, using tetracycline antibiotics in children aged less than nine with acne. The pathogenesis of acne is not different in pre-adolescents than in adolescents, Dr. Singh says, but it is more likely to be non-inflammatory in younger patients, characterized by comedones on the nose, mid-face, and forehead.Read more at Dermatology Times.