Oral ivermectin versus 5% permethrin cream to treat children and adults with classic scabies: multicentre, assessor blinded, cluster randomised clinical trial

Back to news list

Source: BMJ

Original: http://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj-2025-086277.short?rss=1...

Published: 2026-01-06T02:21:14-08:00

The study compared the efficacy of oral ivermectin and 5% permethrin cream in the treatment of classical scabies infection confirmed by dermoscopy in children and adults. The study enrolled 507 ivermectin-treated participants and 568 permethrin-treated participants, all receiving treatment on day 0 and day 10. The household-level cure rate was significantly higher with permethrin at 88.5% compared to 71.8% with ivermectin (a difference of -16.7 percentage points). Similarly, for index cases (first patients), the success rate of permethrin cream was 91.5% versus 76.6% for ivermectin. Cutaneous adverse events occurred in 11.9% of patients treated with ivermectin and in 15.6% of patients treated with permethrin. The study concluded that oral ivermectin did not demonstrate the same efficacy as 5% permethrin cream and that permethrin was statistically more effective when clinically administered on day 28.