A review study published in the September 2017 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology supports the role of Demodex mites in rosacea. Ying Shuo-Chang, MD, and Yu-Chen Huang, MD, of Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taiwan, performed a literature search in PubMed, MEDLINE, and EmBase databases from inception through October 31, 2016. They searched the terms “Demodex” and “Demodex Mites” combined with “Rosacea.” All studies included in their review and meta-analysis were human clinical trials published in English.
Comparing control patients to 1,513 rosacea patients in 23 case-control studies, 810 in 1,150 patients with rosacea had the mites vs. only 336 of the 1,057 healthy control subjects. In addition, the average density of mites in the rosacea group was 71.0 mites/cm2 (range, 1.9-376.8 mites/cm2) compared to 8.7 mites/cm2 (range, 0.06-89.6 mites/cm2 in healthy control patients.
