Vitiligo is a cutaneous pigmentary disorder characterized by depigmented macules and patches that result from loss of epidermal melanocytes. Physician evaluates the efficacy of treatment by comparing the extent of vitiligo lesions before and after treatment based on the overall visual impression of the treatment response. This method is called the physician's global assessment (PGA) which is subjective. In this article, we present an innovative digital image processing method to determine vitiligo lesion area in an objective manner.
Ticks are important ectoparasites which transmit many disease pathogen to animals; these are labelled tick borne diseases (TBD). Tick induced damage to skin and hides has not received attention. Skin and hides are important for the leather product industry, particularly in Pakistan. Due to economic importance and financial loss by ticks in leather industry, the present study was designed to investigate skin and hides damage due to ticks at microscopic level. Naturally tick infested tissue samples of hides and skin were collected from slaughter houses. Primary lesions at tick feeding sites showed epidermal edema with adjacent dermal edema. Histopathological examination revealed degeneration of epidermal layer down to the basal layer. Epidermal and sub dermal layers often displayed focal necrosis infiltrated with neutrophils and mononuclear cells at tick bite sites. Hyperplasia of keratinocytes was also seen at sites of ruptured epidermis. Quality of leather depends upon the grain (Outer) surface skin/hides. Ticks infestation damages the outer surface, due to bites, inflammatory responses, and secondary bacterial infections that often become established at feeding sites. Control of ticks should be given consideration to reduce infestation induced losses in the leather industry in Pakistan.
The photobiostimulation effects of near infrared 808 nm diode laser irradiance on diabetic wound were investigated. 120 rats were induced with diabetes by streptozotocin injection. Full thickness punch wounds of 6mm diameter were created on the dorsal part of the rats. All rats were randomly distributed into four groups; one group served as control group, whereas three groups were stimulated daily with unchanged energy density dose of 5 J/cm(2) with different power density, which were 0.1 W/cm(2), 0.2 W/cm(2) and 0.3 W/cm(2) with different exposure duration of 50s, 25s and 17s, respectively. Ten rats from each group were sacrificed on day 3, 6 and 9, respectively. Skin tissues were removed for histological purpose. The contraction of wound was found optimized after exposure with 0.1 W/cm(2). Based on the histological evidence, laser therapy has shown able to promote wound repair through enhanced epithelialization and collagen fiber synthesis. Generally, irradiated groups were advanced in terms of healing than non-irradiated group.
Skin grafting has been evolving as an important application in reconstructive surgery. Mixed reports about the survival of allogeneic and xenogeneic keratinocytes require further substantiation to determine the role of these cells in wound healing.
Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is a self-limiting paediatric infectious disease commonly caused by Enterovirus A71 (Genus: Enterovirus, Family: Picornaviridae). Typical lesions in and around the hands, feet, oral cavity and other places may rarely be complicated by acute flaccid paralysis and acute encephalomyelitis. Although virus is readily cultured from skin vesicles and oral secretions, the cellular target/s of Enterovirus A71 in human skin and oral mucosa are unknown. In Enterovirus A71-infected human skin and oral mucosa organotypic cultures derived from the prepuce and lip biopsies, focal viral antigens and viral RNA were localized to cytoplasm of epidermal and mucosal squamous cells as early as 2 days post-infection. Viral antigens/RNA were associated with cytoplasmic vacuolation and cellular necrosis. Infected primary prepuce epidermal keratinocyte cultures showed cytopathic effects with concomitant detection of viral antigens from 2 days post-infection. Supernatant and/or tissue homogenates from prepuce skin organotypic cultures and primary prepuce keratinocyte cultures showed viral titres consistent with active viral replication. Our data strongly support Enterovirus A71 squamous epitheliotropism in the human epidermis and oral mucosa, and suggest that these organs are important primary and/or secondary viral replication sites that contribute significantly to oral and cutaneous viral shedding resulting in person-to-person transmission, and viraemia, which could lead to neuroinvasion.
This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and association of HLA-B*15:02 with carbamazepine-induced Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis (CBZ-SJS/TEN) in the Indian population in Malaysia, which mostly originated from Southern India. HLA-B alleles in five Indian case patients with CBZ-SJS/TEN and 52 CBZ-tolerant controls, and followed by a pooled sample of seven cases from two centers in Malaysia were analyzed. Positive association for HLA-B*15:02 with CBZ-SJS/TEN was detected in Indians (40% [2/5] vs. 3.8% [2/52], odds ratio [OR] 16.7, p = 0.0349), of which 80% (4/5) of the Indian patients originated from Southern India. A pooled sample of seven cases showed stronger association between HLA-B*15:02 and CBZ-SJS/TEN (57.1% [4/7] vs. 3.8% [2/52], OR 33.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.25-162.21, p = 1.05 × 10(-3)). Subsequent meta-analysis on Indians from Malaysia and India further demonstrated a significant and strong association between HLA-B*15:02 and CBZ-SJS/TEN (OR 38.54; 95% CI 6.83-217.34, p < 1.0 × 10(-4)). Our study is the first on Indians predominantly from Southern India that demonstrated HLA-B*15:02 as a strong risk factor for CBZ-SJS/TEN despite a low population allele frequency. This stressed the importance of testing for HLA-B*15:02, irrespective of the ancestral background, including populations with low allele frequency.