The editorial base would like to thank the following people who were the external referees for this review: Joel Bamford (content expert), Alfredo Rebora (content expert), Matthew Grainge (statistician), Carol Coupland (statistician), Alison Dudley (consumer) and Maria Cunningham (consumer).

The reviewers would like to thank Mrs DL Brand‐de Heer (librarian) for her help with the search for trials, Frank Powell (content expert) for his useful advice, Mary Finn (consumer) for her help and suggestions and Rob Scholtens (statistician) for his enthusiastic support during the analysis. Furthermore the reviewers would like to thank Tina Leonard (Review Group Co‐ordinator for the Skin Group) for being always there, offering help and giving pep talks when needed, and Dedee Murrell, our lead editor, for her hard work. And last, but not least I would like to thank Hywel Williams for his wise advice and for helping me to keep the torch burning in difficult moments.