Doctors should not be discouraged from prescribing isotretinoin to adolescents for inflammatory acne, according to a new study by Canadian and U.S. scientists showing the drug does not increase the risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Led by Dr. Mahyar Etminan of the Child & Family Research Institute at BC Children’s Hospital, the Provincial Health Services Authority and the University of British Columbia, the scientists addressed this important drug safety question because of a previous study linking the drug to IBD. In this new report published February 20, 2013 in the medical journal JAMA Dermatology, Dr. Etminan’s team says theirs is the first to statistically adjust for severe acne, which is a strong confounding variable that may have led to the overestimation of risk in the earlier study.
