Successful Treatment of Chronic Venous Ulcers With a 1,320-nm Endovenous Laser Combined With Other Minimally Invasive Venous Procedures.

BACKGROUND: Venous ulcers are very common with few curative treatment options. OBJECTIVE: To report the closure rate and clinical characteristics of active venous ulcers in a vein clinic using endovenous laser ablation (EVLA) with a 1,320-nm laser. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A prospective database was kept consisting of patients with an active venous ulcer at the time of consultation in a single-practitioner academic vein clinic from March 2007 to May 2014. A database was maintained and charts were reviewed with attention to the length of time the patient reported having the ulcer, procedures performed, and time to ulcer healing. RESULTS: Thirty-one patients were identified at consultation with venous ulceration. One patient's ulcer was healed with conservative medical management before receiving treatment. The remaining 30 patients were treated with a combination of EVLA of the great and/or short saphenous veins, foam sclerotherapy of insufficient varicose and reticular veins, and phlebectomy as appropriate. Two patients were lost to follow up after partial treatment. Ulcer healing occurred in more than 93% (27/29) of patients with a median healing time of 55 days from the time of first treatment. The median follow-up time after treatment was 448 days. CONCLUSION: Endovenous laser ablation with a 1,320-nm laser in combination with foam sclerotherapy and phlebectomy as appropriate is effective treatment of chronic venous ulcers and should be considered as a treatment option for patients with C6 venous insufficiency. To the authors' knowledge, this is the largest, prospective series of chronic venous ulcers treated with EVLA. Further randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm these findings.

Facing the block and false positives in Mohs surgery: a retrospective study of 2,198 cases.

BACKGROUND: "Facing the block" is defined as trimming tissue on a microtome from peripheral or deep surgical margins before sectioning. Facing includes trimming performed intentionally but unnecessarily, accidentally, or out of necessity because of one's choice of embedding and freezing method. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether facing the block is associated with a greater number of stages to clear tumor and, by inference, a significant false positive rate. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed comparing the average number of stages per Mohs case at two surgical facilities with the same physician over a 1-year period. Site A histotechnologists intentionally face the block, whereas site B histotechnologists do not. Tissue thickness lost during trimming at each site was recorded for 4 weeks. RESULTS: Comparing Sites A and B, stages per case were 1.92 and 1.53, respectively (p < .01) and trimming depths before the first section were 325 and 187 µm (p < .01). CONCLUSION: Facing the block is associated with 0.39 more stages per case and, by inference, a false-positive rate of approximately 39%. Mohs surgeons should evaluate the methods of tissue preparation that their histotechnologists use. Facing the block should not be performed.

Keloids and non-diabetic kidney disease: similarities and the APOL1-MYH9 haplotype as a possible genetic link.

Keloids and non-diabetic kidney disease are both fibrotic processes that disproportionately affect persons of African descent. Despite similarities in these conditions, the authors identified no studies to date investigating a shared genetic etiology. MYH9 and APOL1 are in linkage disequilibrium and have both been associated with non-diabetic kidney disease. MYH9 codes for a non-muscle myosin that is involved in cell adhesion and locomotion and is known to be overexpressed in keloids. Variations in APOL1 confer resistance to subspecies of Trypanosoma brucei, which may explain why otherwise deleterious genetic alterations in this haplotype could have gained prominence. We feel that the pathophysiological and epidemiological overlap between keloids and non-diabetic kidney disease support a common genetic origin and further investigation into keloids and the MYH9-APOL1 haplotype and keloids is warranted. Furthermore, we feel this haplotype might offer insight into thrombosis, stroke and other conditions that disproportionately affect persons of African descent.

Laser-induced tissue reactions and dermatology.

Knowledge of laser tissue reactions and tissue properties allows the practitioner to tailor a treatment to an individual patient's need and goals. A laser's power, spot size and pulse duration may be manipulated to yield different tissue reactions. Five tissue reactions, each the result of varying laser pulse durations and energy densities, may be achieved. They are photochemical, photothermal, photoablation, plasma-induced ablation and photomechanical. Of these, photothermal reactions are most utilized in dermatology. When higher powered pulses are applied, tissue often undergoes multiple reactions simultaneously. An understanding of these reactions allows their effects to be predicted. In this chapter, the various reactions are reviewed, and the reactions caused by many of the most commonly used lasers in dermatology are discussed.