Efficacy and Safety of Compound Glycyrrhizin Combined with Topical Minoxidil for Alopecia Areata: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the efficacy and safety of combining compound glycyrrhizin (CG) with topical minoxidil for treating alopecia areata (AA) by analyzing 11 randomized controlled trials involving 1,189 patients. The combination therapy was found to be more effective than minoxidil alone, improving clinical efficacy and reducing SALT scores, serum TNF-α, IL-12, and IFN-γ levels, while increasing serum TGF-β1 levels. No significant differences in adverse events were observed between the two groups. Despite these positive findings, the study calls for more high-quality, large-scale RCTs to further validate the results due to the suboptimal quality of the included studies.