Content - Volume 64, Issue 6

The possibility that glycoconjugates play a role in epidermal differentiation has stimulated attempts at their biochemical identification. We have examined the Concanavalin (ConA)-binding glycoproteins present: in whole human epidermis, epidermal cells obtained by trypsinization of human skin, non dissociated layers (the most differentiated ones) remaining after preparation of these cells and huma ...

The cellular characteristics of the epidermal appendages and their differentiations in relation to those of the epidermis have been chiefly studied from the morphological points in the past. We investigated them from the immunohistochemical characteristics of the constituent keratin protein to the antiserum against total keratin isolated from human plantar stratum corneum (TKA) which stains the wh ...

The cellular response in pityriasis (tinea) versicolor lesions was analysed in situ with an immunohistochemical double staining technique combined with periodic acid-Schiff staining in frozen sections of skin biopsies from 9 patients. The proportions of B and T cells and subpopulations of T cells in the blood were normal as were the proliferative responses of blood mononuclear cells against variou ...

Eighteen consecutive patients with an established diagnosis of Progressive Systemic Sclerosis (PSS) underwent different investigative procedures to determine possible esophageal involvement. Esophageal sclerosis was demonstrated by X-ray and manometry in 13 patients. In all patients endoscopic biopsies of esophageal mucosa were obtained. In all biopsies the concentrations of hydroxyproline, hydrox ...

Skin manifestations of localized scleroderma were assessed clinically in 58 patients presenting 214 circumscribed scleroderma lesions (23 patients with localized morphoea plaques, 15 with generalized morphoea, 11 with linear scleroderma of trunk and extremities, 9 with scleroderma en coup de sabre). Characteristic differences between different types of localized scleroderma with respect to age at ...

Twenty-six patients with chronic dermatophytosis (CD) by Trichophyton rubrum (TR) through one year were included in a double-blind clinical trial with Levamisole/Placebo. All patients were treated with griseofulvin concomitantly. Before, during and after the trial, studies of the cellular and humoral immune response were performed. The result of treatment with griseofulvin plus levamisole (62.5% c ...

The ultrastructural morphology of the inflammatory infiltrate in cutaneous leishmaniasis with low parasite load from seven patients was studied. Cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system (macrophages and epithelioid cells), plasma cells, and lymphocytes formed the infiltrate. Disseminated shrinkage necrosis or apoptotis as well as coagulative necrosis with loss of the plasma membrane of single mac ...

Spirochetes were recovered from the skin lesion of 1 out of 10 acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans patients (ACA). Spirochetes from this skin isolate and from Ixodes (I.) ricinus and I. dammini spirochetes were used as antigens in indirect immunofluorescence tests. All sera from 17 ACA patients showed high antibody titers to the three antigens. Seven of the 17 sera which had the highest titers had ...

88 tularemia patients with secondary skin manifestations seen in northern Finland during 1967-1983 are described in this paper. Tularemia was ulceroglandular in 57% and pulmonary in 27% of the patients. 68% of the patients were women. The most common secondary skin manifestation was papular or vesicopapular eruption which was seen in 42% of the patients. Erythema nodosum either alone or in combina ...

Serum total an unbound testosterone (T) and sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) levels were studied in fifty-four female acne patients before treatment and during the treatment by two different oral contraceptives, the other containing 0.150 mg desogestrel plus 0.03 mg EE and the other 0.150 mg levonorgestrel plus 0.03 mg EE. Pretreatment values were abnormal in 57% of the patients. A borderline s ...

The efficacy of an antigen-free diet on the activity of atopic dermatitis was examined in a double-blind study, comprising 33 adults with severe atopic dermatitis. The antigen-free diet (Vivasorb) was compared to a placebo diet during three weeks of hospitalization. Twenty-five patients were evaluable, two of whom had their diet stopped after a few days due to exacerbation. Nine patients improved, ...

A series of 43 patients with therapy-resistant viral warts of long-duration were treated with dinitrochlorbenzene (DNCB). Of the 37 patients, who completed the treatment, 19 were cured, including five of seven patients with hyperkeratotic tumor-like warts. The majority of the patients showed a depressed cell-mediated immune response. 25 patients were reexamined 5 years later and 8 additional patie ...

Hydroxyproline (Hyp), hydroxylysine (Hyl), and proline (Pro) were assayed in the urine from 28 patients with localized scleroderma (13 with localized morphoea plaques, 13 with generalized morphoea, and two with scleroderma en coup de sabre), as well as 17 control persons. The levels of Hyp, Hyl and Pro were elevated in patients with localized morphoea plaques as compared to the controls indicating ...

The rate of evaporation after stripping a test area with adhesive tape was followed in 10 women over a period of 15 days. The much increased transepidermal water loss after stripping diminished rapidly on the first 3 days. It then decreased more slowly, approaching but not fully reaching the normal rate by the end of test period. This can be taken to reflect the repair process of the damaged barri ...

Indirect immunofluorescence testing was carried out on sera from 14 patients with cicatricial pemphigoid with use of both autologous and homologous human tissue substrates. The results were largely negative. The sensitivity of detection of circulating antibody is not increased with these substrates over that with animal tissue substrates.

Extracts of psoriatic scales from patients with chronic plaque psoriasis and of normal human post-mortem skin were tested for their effects on the migration of healthy human mononuclear cells in a modified Boyden chamber. A preparation of cells containing 12-32% monocytes was obtained from whole blood by a density gradient technique. The cells were allowed to migrate through a polycarbonate filter ...

The low levels of glutathione-peroxidase in blood from patients with dermatitis herpetiformis increased after 5 months selenium and vitamin E treatment. In this double-blind study no significant clinical improvement was, however, noted.

A 61-year-old woman presented with circumscribed eczematous eruptions with maceration, erosions and patchy infiltration in the perineum and inframammary regions. A diagnosis of eosinophilic granuloma (cutaneous histiocytosis X) was established. T lymphocytes from a skin biopsy were grown in vitro for three weeks after which chromosomal studies revealed a break or gap at chromosome 16q22 in 15% of ...

Low levels of the fourth component of complement (C4) were found functionally and immunochemically in two sisters (17 and 22 years of age) suffering both from discoid lupus erythematosus. C4-typing of the family revealed that the two sisters and the mother had only two, and the father three of the four genes coding for C4 expressed. All carried the null allele C4B*QO. This observation adds to the ...

Two patients had scleredema with monoclonal gammopathy, one of whom was considered to have smoldering multiple myeloma. In one patient, the scleredema cleared without treatment, while in the other, the scleredema and the monoclonal gammopathy persisted unchanged.

101 patients suffering from psoriasis have been examined ophthalmologically, in order to determine the incidence of the eye symptoms. The most important finding was iridocyclitis (uveitis) which was present in 3 out of 7 patients suffering from psoriatic arthritis.

More than 80 cases of acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis have been published since Sweet in 1964 described the syndrome. Besides skin eruptions, some patients have mucous membrane lesions involving mouth and lips. This report describes a patient with a pustular eruption consistent with Sweet´s syndrome, who is believed to be the first with involvement of genital mucosa.

Previously we observed clinical and histological regression of Kaposi´s sarcoma in the skin in a 38-year-old man with AIDS following treatment with Dapsone. This observation initiated the present study where 6 patients with Kaposi´s sarcoma in the skin without clinical signs of systemic spreading were treated with Dapsone 100 mg daily for four months. During this treatment clinical and histologi ...

Twenty patients with mycosis fungoides and four with S?©zary´s syndrome were treated with 13-cis-retinoic acid as single therapy in an initial dose of 1 to 2 mg per kg body weight in most cases. Complete remission in mycosis fungoides was obtained in six cases (33%) and partial remission in another ten cases (50%). No convincing response was observed in three cases, and progression of limited no ...

Three patients, a mother and her two sons, with mutilating palmoplantar keratoderma (Vohwinkel´s syndrome) were successfully treated with oral etretinate (Tigason). All of them had keratotic constriction furrows of one or more digits (pseudo-ainhum) with threatening spontaneous amputation. Oral treatment with etretinate brought about disappearance of the pseudo-ainhums and normalization of the di ...

No abstract available.