Rare morphological variants of the bones: epicondylar processes, metopic suture and Wormian bones in XVIII century skeleton.

Background: Analysis of the female skeleton from the 18th century revealed a collection of morphological changes.

Materials And Methods: Anthropological evaluation and dental X-ray techniques allowed the age to be determined at 12-13 years.

Results: The distal parts of the both humerus bones had distinct, supracondylar processes of about 5 mm at the medial-lateral surface.

T-regulatory cells in severe atopic dermatitis: alterations related to cytokines and other lymphocyte subpopulations.

The changes in lymphocyte subpopulations in atopic dermatitis (AD) concern also T-regulatory cells. We investigated the expression of various surface receptors on CD3(+)CD4(+)CD25(high)FoxP3(+) T-regulatory cells and the activation CD28(+) receptor and the inhibitory CD152(+) receptor on helper/inducer as well as cytotoxic/suppressor T cells. Peripheral blood lymphocytes of 15 AD patients and 20 healthy subjects were analyzed by flow cytometry using monoclonal antibodies.

Heart rate turbulence impairment and ventricular arrhythmias in patients with systemic sclerosis.

Background: Arrhythmias, conduction disturbances, and cardiac autonomic nervous system dysfunction are the most frequent cardiovascular complications in systemic sclerosis (scleroderma). The aim of the study was to assess heart rate turbulence (HRT) in systemic sclerosis patients and to identify the relationship between HRT and occurrence of arrhythmias.

Methods: Forty-five patients with scleroderma (aged 54.

Heart rate turbulence assessment in systemic sclerosis: the role for the detection of cardiac autonomic nervous system dysfunction.

Objective: To assess the heart rate turbulence (HRT) in patients with SSc as a method of assessment for cardiac autonomic nervous function.

Methods: We prospectively studied 68 consecutive patients with SSc before inclusion in the study. After a detailed clinical evaluation, including echocardiography, 45 subjects [aged 54.

Pulmonary hypertension in systemic sclerosis determines cardiac autonomic dysfunction assessed by heart rate turbulence.

There is limited data on heart rate turbulence (HRT) in systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients, potentially threatened with cardiac autonomic dysfunction. We performed 24-hour Holter monitoring for HRT assessment in 45 patients with SSc and 30 healthy controls. Abnormal HRT defined as turbulence onset (TO) >or=0.

Assessment of left and right ventricular diastolic function in patients with systemic sclerosis.

Background: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disease characterised by vascular changes and immunologically induced fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. Systemic sclerosis may be associated with both right (RV) and left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction.

Aim: To analyse RV and LV myocardial diastolic function in patients with SSc and its relation to exercise capacity.

[Diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic guidelines in patients with atopic dermatitis. Position paper by the task force of the National Specialists on Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology].

Treatment modalities of patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) are dependent on patient age, on the intensity of both skin symptoms and subjective signs of the disease i.e. itch and sleep disturbances, on the body surface involved with lesions, as well as on the type of sensitizing allergens.

[Allergic contact dermatitis].

Clinical definition of eczema is based on the presence of multiform erythematous, papular and vesicular lesions which are followed by marked desquamation. When the underlying mechanism is allergic, skin lesions are mediated by inflammatory Th1 lymphocytes recognizing hapten determinants, i.e.

[Latent sources of contact allergy].

In individuals sensitized to many contact allergens in the course of 4th immunological mechanism, in whom allergic contact dermatitis develops at the site of exposure to haptens, disseminated eczematous skin lesions might be provoked by latent source of hapten, which penetrates to the body omitting the skin. The most frequent clinical situations include: allergy to drugs, food additives, inhaled chemicals originated from plants, allergic reactions to metal endoprostheses used in orthopaedics and/or dentistry, and all conditions facilitating penetration of hapten directly to the blood through damaged skin (erosions, ulcers, etc.) and/or under occlusive dressings.

[Effectiveness of a micronized purified flavonoid fraction (MPFF) in the healing process of lower limb ulcers. An open multicentre study, controlled and randomized].

Objective: To determine the increase in healing rate of venous ulcer in patients receiving a micronised purified flavonoid fraction (MPFF) as supplementation to standard local care.

Design: A randomised, open, controlled, multicentre study.

Setting: Departments of Dermatology and University Outpatients Clinics.

Mast cells in developing subepidermal bullous diseases: emphasis on tryptase, chymase and protease inhibitors.

The possible involvement of mast cell tryptase and chymase in subepidermal bullous diseases was studied enzyme-histochemically in specimens from erythematous and vesicular skin and from non-involved skin of patients with dermatitis herpetiformis, bullous pemphigoid, erythema multiforme, infective bullous eruption and linear IgA dermatosis. Patients with pemphigus were biopsied for comparison. The immunoreactivity of chymase inhibitors, alpha1-proteinase inhibitor (alpha1-PI) and alpha1-antichymotrypsin (alpha1-AC), in mast cells was demonstrated using the sequential double staining method.

Modulation of CD3-dependent lymphocyte proliferation by extracellular matrix proteins in atopic dermatitis.

Patients with atopic dermatitis were found to have an about 7-fold increased spontaneous proliferative response of peripheral blood lymphocytes and an about 4-fold elevation of CD3-dependent lymphocyte transformation as compared to normal controls. The CD3-dependent lymphocyte response in patients with severe atopic dermatitis lesions was increased to a lower degree than in those with mild skin lesions. Despite a highly increased CD3-dependent lymphocyte response, the extracellular matrix proteins could induce further co-stimulation of lymphocytes in patients with atopic dermatitis, similar to that in normal controls.

Excessive costimulation of CD3-dependent lymphocyte response by extracellular matrix proteins in severe widespread psoriasis.

Costimulation of anti-CD3-triggered proliferative T-cell responses by type I and type IV collagen and fibronectin was studied in 25 patients with psoriasis and 12 healthy subjects. The stimulation index of anti-CD3-mediated responses in the presence of type I collagen was about half that in the controls. Although the CD3-dependent proliferative response of psoriatic lymphocytes in patients with active widespread plaque psoriasis was reduced by about 50%, costimulatory responses induced by type IV collagen and fibronectin were found to be enhanced in relation to the controls.

Increased concentration of beta-endorphin in the sera of patients with severe atopic dermatitis.

Serum beta-endorphin was measured by radioimmunoassay in 25 patients with atopic dermatitis and 100 healthy subjects. The neuropeptide was found to be markedly (p < 0.001) increased in patients with atopic dermatitis (9.

Increased concentration of beta-endorphin in sera of patients with psoriasis and other inflammatory dermatoses.

Serum beta-endorphin was quantified by radioimmunoassay in 71 patients with psoriasis vulgaris, other chronic inflammatory skin diseases with T-cell infiltrates [atopic dermatitis (n = 25), and systemic sclerosis (n = 34)], and 100 healthy subjects. The neuropeptide was found to be markedly (P < 0.001) increased in patients with psoriasis (14.

Neuropeptides in psoriasis: possible role of beta-endorphin in the pathomechanism of the disease.

Background: An increased concentration of neuropeptides in psoriatic lesional skin may be responsible for alterations in the neurogenic erythematous response and transmission of stimuli through sensory nerve fibers (sensation of pruritus).

Methods: Increasing doses of capsaicin from 0.125 to 4 micrograms/cm2 were applied to nonlesional psoriatic skin to establish the minimal dose that induced the substance P-mediated neurogenic response in 30 patients with psoriasis.

Alterations of T-cell: extracellular matrix proteins interactions in psoriasis.

Recent data indicate that extracellular matrix proteins (collagens, fibronectin) co-stimulate T-cell lymphoproliferative responses in vitro. We have studied the co-stimulatory activities of those proteins in patients with psoriasis, a disease in which T cells infiltrating the skin are continuously exposed to collagen and fibronectin. CD3-triggered T-cell proliferative responses were lower in psoriasis but could be enhanced by collagens I and IV and fibronectin.

Decreased specific anti-elastase activity in the uninvolved skin of patients with psoriasis.

Inhibitory activities against elastase, chymotrypsin and trypsin were studied in the fluid from experimentally developed suction blisters in the uninvolved skin of patients with psoriasis. These activities determined by spectrophotometry of specific synthetic low molecular weight substrates were compared with respective antiproteinase activities in sera of 32 patients with psoriatic lesions, ten patients in remission, and ten healthy volunteers. A marked reduction (29.

Neurogenic inflammation induced by capsaicin in patients with psoriasis.

Increasing doses of capsaicin were applied topically to the forearm skin of 30 patients with psoriasis, 16 patients with systemic scleroderma and 16 healthy volunteers. Only one-third of the patients with psoriasis responded with neurogenic inflammation to capsaicin doses of 0.125 and 0.

Ultrastructural changes of the skin induced by human leukocyte elastase and cathepsin G.

Human neutrophil elastase and cathepsin G at a concentration of 10(-6) M were found to attack various substrates when normal skin biopsy specimens were incubated at 37 degrees C for 1 h with either of these enzymes. Elastase damaged primarily hemidesmosomes, leading to the epidermal cleavage from the dermis, whereas cathepsin G damaged the membrane structures. Both these neutral proteinases were highly specific to basal lamina of blood vessels.

[Studies of natural killer cell cytotoxicity against human chondrocytes in patients with articular arthritic changes complicated by psoriasis and systemic scleroderma].

The natural killer (NK) activity against fetal chondrocytes was studied in patients with psoriasis and systemic sclerosis. It was shown that the cell responsible for the cytotoxic effect is a lymphocyte CD16+, CD2-. In patients with arthritic psoriasis NK activity against chondrocytes was significantly higher than in other psoriasis patients or in healthy controls.

Basement membrane zone as a target for human neutrophil elastase in psoriasis.

Human neutrophil elastase was found, by indirect immunofluorescence using rabbit anti-elastase anti-serum, to be bound to basement membrane of psoriatic plaques in vivo. The enzyme was also identified inside the migrating neutrophils in the reticular dermis and dermal papillae, as well as outside the cells in micro-abscesses in psoriatic skin. In vitro incubation of normal skin with human neutrophil elastase resulted in the destruction of hemidesmosomes and separation of the epidermis from the dermis above localizations of bullous pemphigoid antigen.