Cryotherapy: A Successful Monotherapy for Earlobe Keloids

Keywords: earlobe keloids, cryotherapy, monotherapy Introduction A keloid is an overgrowth of skin at a site of injury, surgical scar, burn or vaccination.1,2 Predisposing factors include black race; female gender; family history of keloid formation; secondarily infected wound;3 injuries to the presternal area, earlobes, shoulder girdle, face or ankle;4 and injury during puberty or pregnancy, due to high fibroblastic activity.5 Itching and pain are common symptoms of keloids.1,3 Keloids can become of major cosmetic concern, particularly earlobe keloids if they grow to a large size. Earlobe keloids usually follow ear piercing.6 Different treatment modalities have been employed, whether alone or in combination, including surgical excision, pressure dressing, intralesional corticosteroid injection, cryosurgery, radiation, and lasers, yet none of these options has consistently produced satisfactory results.6-8 Cryotherapy is widely and safely used in dermatology: for instance, in the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis,9 warts10 and benign tumors such as pyogenic granuloma.11 The use of cryotherapy alone was studied, and was found to be a promisingly effective and efficient method for treating earlobe keloids,8,12,13 especially for small keloids less than 0.6 cm8, and of less than 2 years durationl.3,14 We here describe multiple, seven-year-old earlobe keloids on both ears, which we successfully treated with cryotherapy alone. [...]cryotherapy appears to be a promising, effective, efficient, easy-to-perform and safe single approach to treat keloids. How does this paper make a difference to general practice? * Cryotherapy can be used exclusively for treating earlobe keloids * No need for compression using silicone sheet * Cryotherapy is cost-effective if applied properly, by applying the appropriate freezing and thawing time and appropriate number of freeze-thaw cycles every session Muthanna AM, Al-Qubati YA.