Clinical Response to Ingenol Mebutate in Patients With Actinic Keratoses.

Cryotherapy is the most common treatment for actinic keratosis, but its effect is limited to individual lesions. Several topical drugs, however, are available that, in addition to treating individual actinic keratoses, target field cancerization and thereby act on subclinical lesions. Examples are 5-fluorouracil, imiquimod, diclofenac, and ingenol mebutate. We report on 17 patients with actinic keratoses treated with ingenol mebutate and describe our findings on treatment effectiveness, adherence, and tolerance. Complete and partial response rates were 35% and 53%, respectively. Ninety-four percent of patients fully adhered to treatment and 18% developed severe local reactions. Ingenol mebutate is an effective treatment for actinic keratosis. Although it has a similar rate of local reactions to other treatments available for actinic keratosis, its short treatment regimen favors better adherence.

Clinical diagnosis of toenail onychomycosis is possible in some patients: cross-sectional diagnostic study and development of a diagnostic rule.

BACKGROUND: Suspected toenail onychomycosis is a frequent problem. Clinical diagnosis has been considered inadequate. OBJECTIVES: To assess the diagnostic accuracy of clinical findings for detecting fungi in toenails, and to develop and validate a clinical diagnostic rule aimed at improving dermatologists' diagnosis of onychomycosis. METHODS: A cross-sectional diagnostic study was performed including a total of 277 patients seen by 12 dermatologists. The gold standard was the presence of dermatophytes on culture or a positive nail plate biopsy. For each sign we described prevalence, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and likelihood ratios for positive and negative results. We developed a diagnostic clinical rule and validated it in a subsample. RESULTS: Helpful findings to predict the presence of fungi are: previous diagnosis of fungal disease; abnormal plantar desquamation (affecting > 25% of the sole); onychomycosis considered the most probable diagnosis by a dermatologist; and presence of interdigital tinea. When dermatologists considered onychomycosis the most probable diagnosis and plantar desquamation was present (13% of patients), the positive predictive value for presence of fungi was 81%. When both signs were absent (34% of patients), the positive predictive value for absence of fungi was 71%. In other situations, clinical diagnosis might not give enough information to decide on therapy. CONCLUSIONS: In 13% of the patients (a large number in absolute terms), when dermatologists consider onychomycosis the most probable diagnosis and plantar desquamation is present, therapy should be started without any further test, as clinical diagnosis is at least as accurate as laboratory tests. In other situations, an optimal management strategy should be defined.

Observer agreement in toenail disorders: implications for diagnosis and clinical research.

BACKGROUND: Toenail disorders are frequent, especially onychomycosis. The interobserver variability of nail signs needs to be known before these signs can be confidently applied for diagnosis. OBJECTIVES: To describe observer agreement in toenail findings as described by dermatologists in standard clinical practice, focusing on signs that could be useful for diagnosis of onychomycosis. METHODS: Prospective cross-sectional study in five dermatology departments. Eighty-six patients with abnormal toenails that could have onychomycosis as a differential diagnosis were independently examined by a pair of dermatologists using a predefined questionnaire, to describe the presence of 10 findings on previous history and 14 physical signs. RESULTS: Agreement was fine for previous history findings: it was very good (kappa > 0.81) for previous diagnosis of diabetes, smoking and use of public dressing rooms or swimming pools. Agreement was good (kappa 0.61-0.80) for immune suppression (drugs or cancer), previous diagnosis of fungal disease and worsening in the last year. It was moderate (kappa 0.41-0.60) for previous diagnosis of arterial disease, trauma induced by work or sports, and distal vs. proximal or lateral vs. central start of the lesion. Agreement was worse for physical signs: we found good agreement for the presence of the same disease in fingernails, abnormal plantar desquamation, deformity causing nail trauma, and subungual hyperkeratosis. It was moderate for the presence of nail destruction, tinea interdigitalis, onycholysis, and the type of material obtained by subungual curettage (dust vs. hard). Agreement was fair (kappa 0.21-0.40) for the presence of longitudinal or transverse striae, trachyonychia, pachyonychia, and change in colour of the nail plate. Pitting was too infrequent to allow for kappa calculation. Chance expected agreement was between 51% and 84% for all signs except pitting. CONCLUSIONS: Agreement is adequate for most signs. It is low for the presence of longitudinal or transverse striae, trachyonychia, and change in colour of the nail plate. Pitting is rare in toenails.

Inpatient dermatology: characteristics of patients and admissions in a Spanish hospital.

BACKGROUND: Inpatient dermatology has not been properly described in many countries. National differences might be important in the evaluation of its usefulness and the applicability of politics of health expenditure restrictions. OBJECTIVE: To describe inpatient activity and readmission rates in a dermatology department in Spain. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional prospective study in a single hospital. SETTING: Secondary care hospital of the National Health Service in Pontevedra (Spain). METHODS: From May 1997 to December 2000, all discharge sheets (1048) were included in the study, codified and described. RESULTS: Surgery was the reason for admission in 37% of the inpatients. The most frequent diagnosis were: neoplasm (36%), infection (15%), psoriasis (10%), other (10%), dermatitis (6%) and drug reaction (5%). Readmission rates were 1.8% within 30 days, and 12.5% within 1 year. CONCLUSIONS: Inpatient dermatology is different in different countries. Compared with what has been described in the USA or UK, our data suggest an important surgical content of inpatient dermatology in Spain, not reported in those countries. Medical diagnoses also differ, consisting of more infections, and less psoriasis and dermatitis in our setting. Readmission rates are low when compared with previously published ones, a finding that supports a long-term benefit of hospitalization.

Chronic infection due to Fusarium oxysporum mimicking lupus vulgaris: case report and review of cutaneous involvement in fusariosis.

A 67-year-old female presented with a 20-year-old lesion involving the right ear and preauricular area mimicking tuberculous lupus. Fusarium oxysporum infection was confirmed by biopsy studies and cultures. The biopsy specimen showed an unusually extensive dermal invasion with fungal hyphae. This is an uncommon clinical presentation for Fusarium infection in a healthy patient. When referred to us, the patient had received antifungal therapy with itraconazole without any benefit. Improvement was obtained with fluconazole therapy. The spectrum of cutaneous involvement related to Fusarium spp. includes toxic reactions, colonization, superficial indolent infection, deep cutaneous or subcutaneous infections and disseminated infection.

Blastoid NK cell leukemia/lymphoma with cutaneous involvement.

Malignant neoplasms from natural killer (NK) cells are characterized by their positivity for CD56 and absence of monoclonal TCR gene rearrangement. Recently, they have been classified into four main types (nasal and nasal-type NK cell lymphoma, aggressive NK cell leukemia/lymphoma, and blastoid NK cell leukemia/lymphoma), based on clinical features, racial predisposition, presence of azurophilic granules, immunophenotype and association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. A 72-year-old Caucasian man presented with a malignant neoplasm comprised of blastoid cells without azurophilic granules in the Giemsa stain, with positivity for CD2, CD4, HLA-DR, CD45 and CD56, and negativity for CD3 (surface and cytoplasmic) and CD5. In situ hybridization for EBV and PCR analysis of rearrangement of the T cell receptor gene were negative. Based on these results, a diagnosis of blastoid NK cell lymphoma was made. In this case the first clinical manifestations were the cutaneous lesions, and, although the disease was already advanced at the diagnosis, the patient responded completely to the treatment and remains asymptomatic 14 months after diagnosis.