Abstract:
Introduction. Melasma is a pathology characterized by brown spots, with irregular edges, due to the increased production of melanin, for reasons such as sun exposure, genetic factors and hormonal disturbances. This condition mainly affects females and its treatment is difficult, slow, and there is no cure. In recent studies, cysteamine is indicated as a good lightening drug for hyperpigmentation caused in melasma, and they demonstrated that it acts by inhibiting the melanogenesis cascade, mainly the enzymes tyrosinase and peroxidase. Objectives. This work aimed to carry out a survey of all studies that evaluated the efficacy of cysteamine as a depigmenting agent and to seek references about its mechanism of action. Method. A bibliographic survey was carried out in Science Direct, Academic Google, Medline and PubMed databases and, consequently, the literature was discussed. Results and discussion. The articles published so far show that cysteamine has inhibitory effects on the melanogenesis cascade, an effect that can be observed by the reduction of characteristic melasma spots, in addition to having few adverse effects, compared to other existing treatments.
