ArticleSkin health and disease2024
A systematic review of outcome measures evaluating treatment efficacy in vulval lichen sclerosus and evaluation of patients' priorities.
Article in Skin health and disease, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07352917 (A Prospective Phase II Open-Label Pilot Study Evaluating the Efficacy and Safety of Methotrexate in the Treatment of Severe Vulvar Lichen Sclerosus), which is not on this map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Prospective Phase II Open-Label Pilot Study Evaluating the Efficacy and Safety of Methotrexate in the Treatment of Severe Vulvar Lichen Sclerosus
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Living with lichen sclerosus: A narrative of transformation, advocacy and community building.Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology : JEADV · 2026Article
- A systematic review of outcome measures evaluating treatment efficacy in vulval lichen sclerosus and evaluation of patients' priorities.Skin health and disease · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Vulval lichen sclerosus (VLS) is an inflammatory skin disease characterised by itching, apareunia, loss of vulval architecture and scarring. Heterogeneity in outcome reporting precludes comparison between treatments. This study aimed to systematically review outcome measures used to evaluate the efficacy of VLS treatments and present patients' treatment priorities. This review followed the PRISMA guidelines using a registered protocol (PROSPERO: CRD42022356738). Multiple databases were searched, along with grey literature on Clinicaltrials.gov, European Union Clinical Trials and International Standard Randomised controlled trial (RCT) registries. All RCTs assessing any treatment for VLS were eligible for inclusion. A total of 775 patients were assessed across 21 RCTs. The assessment tools reported outcomes in the following domains: patient-reported symptoms assessed with one validated scale in 12 studies and seven non-validated scales in nine studies; sexual function with validated female sexual function index and female sexual distress scale in two studies and two non-validated scales in two studies; quality of life with three validated scales in three studies and clinician-reported objective outcomes with two validated scales in three studies and six non-validated scales in fourteen studies. Histological changes were assessed in 10 studies and tissue biomechanics in one study. We also carried out an online survey completed by 809 women with VLS to assess their research and disease treatment priorities and identified validated outcome measures to assess these. There is high variability in assessing treatment outcomes for VLS. We identified validated assessment tools which could be implemented in VLS studies to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.