7. Needle-free jet Injector-assisted triamcinolone treatment of keloids and hypertrophic scars is effective and well tolerated in children. 181 7. METHODS This retrospective cohort study was conducted at the outpatient clinic of the Dermatology department of the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Children with keloids or HTS who were previously treated with TCA using an EPI between February 2021 and April 2023 were included. This study was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of Erasmus Medical Center (MEC-2021-0661). STROBE guidelines were followed. For all patients, written informed consent for usage of their medical data was obtained. Our primary objective was to evaluate effectiveness using the POSAS and GAIS scales.16, 17 The POSAS score is a scar assessment tool that measures the quality of a scar.16 Both the patient and the clinician need to fill in the POSAS score that consists of six items concerning patient symptoms and clinical characteristics of the keloid. The patient and clinician can score the items from 1 (normal skin) to 10 (worst imaginable abnormality). The sum of these items gives the total POSAS score of a minimum 6 points and a maximum of 60 points. The GAIS measures the improvement of a scar compared to pretreatment, which consists of five degrees: exceptional improvement, very improved patient, improved patient, unaltered patient, and worsened patient.17 Our secondary objective was to evaluate tolerability and patient satisfaction. Tolerability was evaluated with treatment-related pain scores and records of documented adverse effects. Patient satisfaction was evaluated at follow-up with an electronic questionnaire (Limesurvey 2.06; GmbH, Hamburg, Germany). Parents of patients aged ≤12 years completed the POSAS patient scale and satisfaction questionnaire with input from their child to the best of their ability. Patients aged >12 years completed the POSAS patient scale and satisfaction scale themselves. Patients were eligible for EPI treatment with TCA if they were aged 4–18 years, presented with one or more keloid(s) or HTS, had experienced moderate-to-severe injection-related
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw