ArticleScientific reports2021
Rethinking the causes of pilonidal sinus disease: a matched cohort study.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of sinus resection combined with vacuum-assisted closure on sacrococcygeal pilonidal sinus.International wound journal · 2023Trial
- An unusual case of penile pilonidal sinus: diagnostic challenges and literature review.Journal of surgical case reports · 2026Article
- Pilonidal sinus disease prevalence and risk factors in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2026Article
- Pilonidal Disease: A Brazilian epidemiological study with an overview of 45,000 surgeries performed in the Unified Health System.Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes · 2026Article
- Recurrence Patterns in Pilonidal Sinus Disease Surgery: Navigating Misclassifications and Early Complications.Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes · 2026Article
- Future of pilonidal cyst surgery: a comparative review of traditional and laser techniques.BMC surgery · 2025Review
- Risk factors for sacrococcygeal pilonidal sinus: a systematic review and meta-analysis supplemented by genetic causal assessment.Frontiers in surgery · 2025Review
- Time trends in incidence of pilonidal sinus disease from 1996 to 2021: A Danish population-based cohort study.Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland · 2024Article
- Adolescent pilonidal disease laser treatment (a-PiLaT): a pilot study.Techniques in coloproctology · 2024Article
- Co-occurrence of posterior chest wall pilonidal sinus with melanocytic nevus: a challenging presentation: a case report.Journal of cardiothoracic surgery · 2024Article
- The application of ERAS in pilonidal sinus: comparison of postoperative recovery between primary suture and Limberg flap procedure in a multicenter prospective randomized trial.Frontiers in surgery · 2024Article
- Pit picking vs. Limberg flap vs. primary open method to treat pilonidal sinus disease - A cohort of 327 consecutive patients.Innovative surgical sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Our understanding of pilonidal sinus disease (PSD) is based on a paper published 29 years ago by Karydakis. Since then, surgeons have been taught that hair more easily penetrates wet skin, leading to the assumption that sweating promotes PSD. This postulate, however, has never been proven. Thus we used pilocarpine iontophoresis to assess sweating in the glabella sacralis. 100 patients treated for PSD and 100 controls were matched for sex, age and body mass index (BMI). Pilocarpine iontophoresis was performed for 5 min, followed by 15 min of sweat collection. PSD patients sweated less than their matched pairs (18.4 ± 1.6 µl vs. 24.2 ± 2.1 µl, p = 0.03). Men sweated more than women (22.2 ± 1.2 µl vs. 15.0 ± 1.0 µl in non-PSD patients (p < 0.0001) and 20.0 ± 1.9 µl vs. 11.9 ± 2.0 µl in PSD patients (p = 0.051)). And regular exercisers sweated more than non-exercisers (29.1 ± 2.9 µl vs. 18.5 ± 1.6 µl, p = 0.0006 for men and 20.7 ± 2.3 µl vs. 11.4 ± 1.4 µl, p = 0.0005 for women). PSD patients sweat less than matched controls. Thus sweating may have a protective effect in PSD rather than being a risk factor.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.