Comparison between famciclovir and valacyclovir for acute pain in adult Japanese immunocompetent patients with herpes zoster.

Famciclovir is a guanine analog antiviral drug used commonly for herpes zoster. Efficacy of famciclovir treatment has been reported to be comparable to valacyclovir treatment. Both of these medications reduce the time to complete cessation of zoster-associated pain including post-herpetic neuralgia, as compared to acyclovir.

Severe gastrointestinal involvement in paraneoplastic pemphigus.

Paraneoplastic pemphigus (PNP) is an autoimmune mucocutaneous disease, associated with neoplasia, which has characteristic clinical, histological and immunological features. While respiratory epithelial involvement has been described in several cases, lesions in the colon epithelium have never been reported. We describe a 57-year-old Japanese woman with PNP who had many aphthae-like erosions on the colon epithelium, in addition to typical mucocutaneous PNP lesions.

Cicatricial pemphigoid with autoantibodies against the laminin 5 gamma 2 subunit.

Cicatricial pemphigoid (CP) is an autoimmune bullous disease accompanied by mucosal lesions. The majority of patients with CP have autoantibodies against BP180. Anti-laminin 5 (epiligrin) CP is relatively rare.

A case of nonscarring subepidermal blistering disease associated with autoantibodies reactive with both type VII collagen and laminin 5.

A 35-year-old Japanese woman had recurrent, pruritic, vesicular lesions on the face, neck and upper back as well as erosive lesions of the oral cavity and genitalia. The skin and mucosal lesions healed without scarring upon the systemic administration of corticosteroid and azathioprine. Direct immunofluorescence revealed linear deposits of IgG, IgA and C3 at the cutaneous basement membrane zone.