ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Several patients, especially women, seek advice because of hair loss. They may be diagnosed clinically as having telogen effluvium (TE) or androgenetic alopecia (AGA), but histopathology may reveal that a proportion of them have in fact alopecia areata incognita (AAI). OBJECTIVES: To detect dystrophic anagen hairs in such patients. METHODS: We studied 1932 patients with hair loss and no signs of classical alopecia areata. They were submitted to the modified wash test (which counts the total number of telogen hairs lost and the percentage of vellus hairs) and divided into patients having pure TE (403), patients with AGA+TE (1235) and patients with pure AGA (294). Dystrophic hairs were detected with a low magnification microscope. RESULTS: Dystrophic hairs were observed in 13 patients with TE (3.2%), in 54 with AGA+TE (4.4%) and in none with AGA. In addition, 7 patients with TE and 32 with AGA+TE developed small patches of alopecia areata in 6 to 9 weeks. No patches developed in patients with AGA. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of dystrophic hairs and the development of patches of alopecia areata (and their absence in pure AGA) provide a first evidence of the possibility that within the heterogenous condition named TE some patients have in fact AAI.
Subject(s)
Alopecia Areata/diagnosis , Hair , Adult , Alopecia Areata/physiopathology , Female , Humans , Male , Middle AgedSubject(s)
Cyclosporine/therapeutic use , Pyoderma Gangrenosum/drug therapy , Adolescent , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
Benign extraosseous cartilaginous lesions are uncommon and favor mainly the soft tissues of the hands and feet. We report a case of chondroma of both auricles. This localization has not been previously reported in the literature.
Subject(s)
Chondroma/pathology , Ear Neoplasms/pathology , Ear, External , Neoplasms, Multiple Primary/pathology , Adult , Ear Cartilage/pathology , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
The follow-up data on 39 cases of stage I malignant melanoma treated with CO2 laser are compared to those of an analogous group of cases treated by traditional surgical methods and selected for their clinical and pathologic similarities with the laser-treated group. The findings were expressed in terms of tumor-free time and were evaluated by variance analysis. The data showed that traditional methods gave better results. CO2 laser surgery requires longer healing time, which may have a negative effect on the course of the disease.
Subject(s)
Laser Therapy , Melanoma/surgery , Skin Neoplasms/surgery , Evaluation Studies as Topic , Humans , Melanoma/pathology , Middle Aged , Prognosis , Skin Neoplasms/pathologyABSTRACT
This paper reports the results of a series of light and electron microscopic, cytochemical, immunologic and cytogenetic investigations performed in a patient with Sézary syndrome. Fifty-two percent of the cerebriform cells were OKIa-1 positive and 55% were acid alpha-naphthyl-acetate esterase (ANAE) negative. Since activated T-lymphocytes are known to lose their peculiar ANAE activity while acquiring Ia-like antigens, it is conceivable that the ANAE-negative and OKIa-1-positive cells represent an in vivo activated subset. Thus, it appears that a typical Sézary cell population from a given individual can exhibit heterogeneous phenotypic profiles.
