NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Transgender patients who receive masculinizing hormone therapy may be more likely to develop acne than cisgender men, cisgender women and transgender patients not receiving testosterone, a new study suggests.
"Patients starting masculinizing gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) should be counseled about the potentially increased acne risk, whereas patients starting feminizing GAHT may have similar or lower acne risk compared to cisgender patients," said Julia Gao and Dr. Erica Dommasch of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, who worked in the study.
"Both types of GAHT are known to affect sebum production and may play a significant role in acne, with masculinizing hormones (i.e., testosterone) being linked to worsening of acne and feminizing hormone therapies (i.e., estrogen and/or antiandrogens) being anecdotally associated with improvement of acne," they told Reuters Health in a joint email.
Clinicians should be ready to treat these patients, the researchers said.
"Adequate treatment of your sexually and/or gender-diverse patients' acne is especially important in this population - studies have shown that transgender and gender-diverse patients with acne experienced greater risk of suicidal ideation and antidepressant use compared to sexual minority patients without acne," they said.
To take a closer look at how gender-affirming hormones impact acne, the two researchers and their colleagues reviewed electronic health records of all transgender diverse (TGD) and cisgender patients who had at least one medical visit to Fenway Health, a community health center in Boston, between 2014 and 2020.
