Efficacy of a tailored moisturizer for reducing chemotherapy-induced skin dryness in breast cancer patients: A randomized controlled clinical trial

Abstract

To the Editor: Chemotherapy drugs decrease sebum production in the sebaceous glands and cause loss of the skin barrier function.1 This causes loss of moisture and lipids in the stratum corneum of the epidermis with a sensation of skin dryness.1 Although up to 60% of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy experience facial skin side effects reducing the quality of life (QoL),2 it was unclear which individual product was beneficial. Thus, we designed a single-center, randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of a tailored moisturizer with a high content (1.5%) of pseudo-ceramides that mimics natural ceramides, which comprises more than 50% of skin lipids for managing chemotherapy-induced dryness (Supplementary material 1, available via Mendeley at https://data.mendeley.com//datasets/nmh769k93k/1).