Treatment of recalcitrant herpes simplex virus with topical imiquimod.

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a common, easily transmissible virus. There is growing awareness of acyclovir-resistant HSV particularly among immunocompromised patients, which may be due to protracted treatments with guanosine analogues. Given the considerable morbidity associated with other classes of antiherpetic medications such as foscarnet (renal impairment, seizures) and cidofovir (renal impairment, neutropenia), imiquimod, a toll-like receptor agonist that enhances the innate immunologic responses against the virus, has been utilized in treating acyclovir-resistant HSV.

Dermatoscopy: an overview of subsurface morphology.

Within the past two decades, an exponential number of publications have emerged on the topic of dermatoscopy, most, if not all, reporting the benefits of using a dermatoscope. Dermatoscopy has been promoted to be useful in diagnosing not only pigmented skin lesions but also a wide range of skin conditions that are infectious, hamartomatous, and inflammatory in nature. Whether or not dermatoscopy truly has a relevant diagnostic role in such a wide range of skin conditions remains to be proven.

Dermatoscopy: an overview--Part I: nonmelanocytic lesions.

The practice of dermatoscopy continues to gain popularity among clinical dermatologists as well as nondermatologists, and therefore an increasing number of publications in the literature are targeted toward providing education on using a dermatoscope with success. Part 1 of this overview on dermatoscopy will focus on a detailed description of dermatoscopic findings of nonmelanocytic simulators of melanoma.

Dermatoscopy: Facts and controversies.

Especially notable in the past 10 years, dermatoscopy has gained attention for its proposed ability of increasing the agnostic accuracy of a variety of skin diseases, including melanoma. Despite the numerous publications applauding and promoting this relatively new diagnostic technique, the utility of dermatoscopy has yet to be fully validated. We present some of the leading arguments regarding dermatoscopy, with a particular focus on the applicability of dermatoscopy to the everyday practice of clinical dermatology.