Tretinoin or all- trans retinoic acid, even known as Vitamin A acid, is a widely used drug in the topical treatment of acne, photoaged skin, psoriasis and other skin related disorders. Stultgen and Beer reported first use of tretinoin in the treatment of keratolytic disorders in 1962. Early application of topical retinoids offers numerous advantages of being comedolytic as well as decreasing the cell turnover and the cell cohesion. It induces the proliferation of the follicular epithelium and normalization of acro-fundibular keratinization leading to good therapeutic results in upto 90% of acne patients. Topical retinoids particularly tretinoin have a well-documented ability to repair photoaged skin at clinical, histological and molecular level. The use of topical retinoids may actually prevent photoageing. Psoriasis is a major skin disease recognized for centuries and as there is no cure, a variety of therapeutic moieties are available to reduce the severity and increase the life quality of the patient. Retinoids may have a direct effect on growth and differentiation of keratinising and non- keratinizing epithelium. Tretinoin also finds application in the treatment of lentigenes, mottled hyperpigmentation, wound healing and cutaneous malignancies.
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