ABSTRACT
Tuberculosis verrucosa cutis is a warty form of cutaneous tuberculosis. It is a paucibacillary disorder caused by external reinfection of mycobacteria into the skin of previously sensitized individuals with moderate to strong cell-mediated immunity. Inoculation arises at sites of minor wounds, or rarely from the patient's sputum. Tuberculosis verrucosa cutis begins as a small papule and grows slowly by peripheral expansion, sometimes reaching a size of several centimeters or more in diameter. For definitive diagnosis of cutaneous tuberculosis, the demonstration of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is essential. However, the laboratory diagnosis of paucibacillary cutaneous tuberculosis is very difficult owing to the poor sensitivity of routine available methods. Herein, we report two cases of tuberculosis verrucosa cutis definitively confirmed by mycobacterial culture in Korean patients who had received bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination earlier in life.
Subject(s)
Humans , Clinical Laboratory Techniques , Diagnosis , Immunity, Cellular , Mycobacterium tuberculosis , Skin , Sputum , Tuberculosis , Tuberculosis, Cutaneous , Vaccination , Wounds and InjuriesABSTRACT
No abstract available.
Subject(s)
Humans , Carbonic Anhydrase Inhibitors , Haplotypes , Stevens-Johnson SyndromeABSTRACT
Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease caused by a novel SFTS bunyavirus (SFTSV), a member of the genus Phlebovirus in the family Bunyaviridae. SFTSV is believed to be transmitted by Haemaphysalis longicornis. Common symptoms of SFTS include high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, thrombocytopenia, leukocytopenia, and multi-organ failure with an average case-fatality rate of 12~30%. In 2009, SFTS was firstly reported in China. In 2013, 27 cases of SFTS were documented in Korea, and 6 cases were confirmed on Jeju Island. Although the pathogenesis and transmission mode of SFTS remain unclear, SFTS is now considered endemic in East Asia. Accordingly, SFTS needs to be differentiated from scrub typhus, leptospirosis, and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome. We here report 4 cases of SFTS preceded by a tick bite, which were in need of a differential diagnosis of scrub typhus.
Subject(s)
Humans , Bunyaviridae , China , Communicable Diseases, Emerging , Diagnosis, Differential , Diarrhea , Asia, Eastern , Fever , Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome , Korea , Leptospirosis , Leukopenia , Phlebovirus , Scrub Typhus , Thrombocytopenia , Tick Bites , VomitingABSTRACT
Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) has been divided into acute GVHD and chronic GVHD on the basis of 100 days post-transplantation. Recently, the National Institutes of Health in the USA proposed new consensus criteria for chronic GVHD; 1) classic chronic GVHD, presenting with diagnostic features of only chronic GVHD without characteristics of acute GVHD and 2) an overlap syndrome in which there are distinctive manifestations of chronic GVHD together with features of acute GVHD, irrespective of the period after transplantation. Herein we report a case of overlap syndrome that developed in a 15 year-old male who had undergone unrelated peripheral blood stem cell transplantation 4 years earlier.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Consensus , Graft vs Host Disease , Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation , Stem Cell Transplantation , TransplantsABSTRACT
The homologous regulation of pituitary Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone Receptor (GnRH-R) mRNA expression by GnRH has been well demonstrated. However, the regulation of the ovarian GnRH-R is poorly understood. The present study was performed to demonstrate the presence of GnRH transcripts in addition to GnRH-R mRNA and the regulation of GnRH-R mRNA expression in the granulosa cells isolated from small antral follicles. The GnRH and GnRH-R mRNA levels were determined by a competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The granulosa cells were obtained from immature rats implanted with diethylstilbestrol for 3 days. When GnRH transcript expression was examined in isolated granulosa cells by RT-PCR, the PCR products showed two bands. The larger band contained intronic sequences and the smaller band was a fully processed GnRH gene transcript identical to hypothalamic GnRH. This suggests that authentic GnRH gene transcripts are expressed in ovarian granulosa cells and may act on the granulosa cells in a paracrine or autocrine manner. Since GnRH action in the granulosa cells is mediated by specific GnRH-R, it is of interest to examine whether GnRH-R is synthesized in the granulosa cells. When the granulosa cells were cultured in media only, GnRH-R mRNA levels increased abruptly within 3 h and gradually decreased thereafter during the 24 h culture period. However, GnRH itself did not alter the GnRH-R mRNA expression levels in cultured granulosa cells. Interestingly, treatment with FSH decreased the GnRH-R mRNA levels in a dose-dependent manner. A time-course analysis revealed that the GnRH-R mRNA levels were significantly lower up to 9 h after FSH treatment, and returned to the basal level between 12 h-24 h. Activation of adenylate cyclase with forskolin also decreased the GnRH-R mRNA levels. It is therefore concluded that in the granulosa cells of the small antral follicles GnRH-R mRNA expression was not homologously regulated by GnRH, while FSH may negatively regulate GnRH-R mRNA expression in the granulosa cells possibly through a cAMP-protein kinase A pathway.