Itraconazole in the treatment of sporotrichosis: a Korean experience.

We describe three cases of sporotrichosis which were successfully treated with itraconazole 100mg daily. Itraconazole was effective and well tolerated in one patient with lymphocutaneous sporotrichosis who discontinued potassium iodide therapy because of side-effects and in two patients with fixed cutaneous sporotrichosis.

Molluscum contagiosum occurring in an epidermal cyst--report of 3 cases.

We present three unusual cases of molluscum contagiosum occurring in epidermal cysts. All of them are asymptomatic, elevated, oval nodules diagnosed clinically as epidermal inclusion cyst or prurigo nodularis. Histology showed true epidermal cysts containing molluscum bodies throughout the cyst wall and some type of laminated material within the cyst itself. The lesion, in all three cases developed in the pubic area of young adult men.

A case of Stewart-Treves syndrome.

Several months after left radical mastectomy without irradiation therapy for breast cancer, a 74-year-old woman developed severe edema on the homolateral arm extending to the axilla. Ten years later, purplish to brownish blotch and nodules accompanied with heating sensation and pain appeared and increased in size gradually on the left forearm. The patient was treated by irradiation therapy under the clinical and histopathologic diagnosis of Stewart-Treves syndrome and almost all of the skin lesions and symptoms disappeared after irradiation of 6450 rads.

Gamma interferon modulates epidermal cell proliferation and mixed epidermal cell-lymphocyte reaction.

Gamma interferon (gamma-IFN), a lymphokine produced by activated T lymphocytes, has a variety of effects on target cell. It induces class II antigens of the major histocompatibility complex not only in immunocompetent cells but also in non-immunocompetent cells. gamma-IFN also can exert, in addition to anti-viral activity, a series of anticellular effects on a variety of cell types. The effects of gamma-IFN on the proliferation of cultured epidermal cell (EC) and induction of HLA-DR antigen expression by EC (HLA-DR+KC) were studied. Furthermore, the immunologic role of HLA-DR+KC in the mixed epidermal cell-lymphocyte reaction (MECLR) was studied. The antiproliferative effect of gamma-IFN on the cultured EC was seen 3 days after treatment of gamma-IFN and the effect was dose-dependent. Number of HLA-DR+KC was increased dose-dependently with treatment of gamma-IFN. In MECLR, HLA-DR+KC had been found to exert stimulatory role on allogenic lymphocytes. However, there was no significant role of HLA-DR+KC on autologous lymphocytes.

A combined regimen of etretinate and UVB modulate T6+ and HLA-DR+ epidermal cells.

Using anti-T6 and anti-HLA-DR monoclonal antibodies, this study was designed to attain what would do to epidermal Langerhans cell (LC) markers in psoriatic patients when two remedies, etretinate and UVB, having controversial effects on LC were put to use simultaneously. In normal and psoriatic subjects, HLA-DR+ LC was approximately 80% of T6+ LC and a single dose of UVB equivalent to minimal erythema dose (MED), reduced LC membrane markers to approximately 30% of non-irradiated control. The recovery of LC membrane markers, after a single dose of UVB exposure were significantly faster in the group of etretinate treated psoriatic subject than only UVB irradiated psoriatic control. Taken together, seemed to exert prompt recovery of normalization of the number of LC from the depletion following the UVB.

Relationship between Candida albicans producing proteinase (CAPP) and its environmental pH--comparison with a case of trichophyton mentagrophytes.

Candida albicans produced a karatinolytic proteinase (KPase) or C. albicans producing proteinase (CAPP), a proposed new term for this enzyme, and Trichophyton mentagrophytes also produced KPase when cultivated in liquid medium containing human stratum corneum (HSC) as the nitrogen source, but were unable to do so when cultivated in sabouraud dextrose broth. Purified KPase from the culture supernatants of C. albicans had a molecular weight of 42,000 and an optimum pH at 4.0. The KPase was found to belong to the carboxyl proteinases group and its activity was strongly inhibited by pepstatin. Both fungi were able to grow by secreting KPase which digested HSC for nutrients. KPase from both fungi had high activity in each optimum pH, such as weakly acidic pH on C. albicans and neutral pH on T. mentagrophytes to adapt their surrounding environment by changing the environmental pH into their own optimum pH.

Lipodystrophia centrifugalis abdominalis juvenilis.

8 Korean children exhibited well-defined depressed lesions of the skin accompanied by slight redness of the surrounding area. First these lesions appeared in the inguinal area and then spread peripherally to the navel region and the ipsilateral vulval area. In these 8 cases, 7 occurred in girls and 1 in a boy. The age of onset ranged from 2 to 9 years. Biopsy specimens taken from the well-depressed area showed a decrease in or absence of, subcutaneous fat and a mild inflammatory infiltrate of lymphocytes and histiocytes in the lower dermis and subcutis. These 8 cases are the first, to our knowledge, to be reported outside Japan and considering the age of onset of the dermatosis it is not confined to infants. Therefore, we would like to describe this entity under the title of lipodystrophia centrifugalis abdominalis juvenilis instead of lipodystrophia centrifugalis abdominalis infantilis.