Side effects and complications of fractional 1550-nm erbium fiber laser treatment among Asians.

BACKGROUND: Fractional erbium fiber laser is an effective treatment for facial wrinkles, acne scars, and dyspigmentation available worldwide. However, there are minimal data of adverse events and complications in Asians. OBJECTIVE: To determine safety and adverse events associated with fractional erbium laser treatment in Asian patients. METHODS: Retrospective data of 181 fractional 1550-nm Ytterbium/Erbium fiber laser (Finescan(™) ; TNC Medditron Co., Ltd., Thailand) from 119 patients with skin phototype III-V at Ramathibodi Laser Center were reviewed. Patient demographics including gender, age, and dermatologic indications for treatment were assessed. Safety and adverse effects related to the treatment were identified. RESULTS: Only six treatments (3.3%) developed complications. The most common adverse event was postinflammatory hyperpigmentation (2.2%), while acneiform eruption and desquamation were reported 0.55%, equally. Although none of the patients received herpes prophylaxis, there were no herpes outbreaks. CONCLUSION: Fractional erbium laser treatment in Asian skin is quite safe, and the side effects in this study were relatively low. Herpes prophylaxis may not be required.

Immunocompromised group differences in the presentation of intestinal strongyloidiasis.

The hospital records of 213 outpatients from Bangkok, Thailand, infected with Strongyloides stercoralis as determined by stool inspections were examined retrospectively for the different clinical presentations ascribed to patients with HIV, those with chronic illness, those who used immunosuppressant drugs and relatively healthy subjects. For HIV patients with strongyloidiasis, the most common symptoms were chronic diarrhea, fever, persistent coughing and loss of weight, but only the first three symptoms were significantly different from other immunocompromised hosts. For healthy patients with strongyloidiasis, acute diarrhea and abdominal pain were the most frequent symptoms. Moreover, the peripheral eosinophil blood count was significantly lower (P=0.004) in the HIV patients than in any of the other subsets. Males were more common than females across all categories. While the average age of all subjects was 48.3+/-16.4 years, the strongyloidiasis patients with chronic illness were significantly older (56.8+/-13.5 years) than those in the other groups. This study may suggest that strongyloidiasis is commonly found in geriatric males, and that the patients most at risk for S. stercoralis infection are HIV patients. This is the first report of the different clinical presentations of intestinal strongyloidiasis in various groups of patients with impaired immunity.

Parasitic infections and allergy--a review.

Parasitic infections have been one of the major health problems in Thailand for decades. However the prevalence of parasitic infections has decreased considerably in recent years due to an increase in personal hygiene and public sanitation. In contrast, allergic diseases, their morbidity, and mortality appear to be on the rise. An immunological explanation and epidemiologic relationship between parasitic infections and allergies has been espoused since the late 1980s. The hygiene hypothesis has been the internationally recognized theory to explain the findings. IgE blocking hypothesis and the modified Th2 responses have also been purposed to describe the effect of preventing allergic diseases by parasitic infections and by IgG4 inducing tolerance, respectively. Several lines of evidence have suggested an inverse association between parasitic infections and the presence of allergic symptoms. Moreover, data have demonstrated interleukin-10 presenting the suppressive effect of parasitic infection to allergic responses. Nevertheless, a causal relationship between parasitic infections and allergies remains to be proven. Future prospective and intervention studies are required to determine the role of parasitic infection with allergic responses to host exposures.