Primary and metastatic malignant tumors of the scalp: an update.

In recent years there have been a number of interesting advances in several topics relating to the diagnosis and treatment of cutaneous lesions with particular applicability to primary and metastatic malignancies of the scalp. In this article we provide a general update of advances in this field, and cover the more salient points relating to a variety of malignant tumors that have been reported to appear on the scalp as primary or metastatic lesions. A search and review of the literature on PubMed was made to identify and discuss relevant points relating to diagnosis and treatment of primary and metastatic tumors of the scalp.

Primary cutaneous follicle center lymphoma associated with alopecia areata.

We report a patient who presented simultaneously with primary cutaneous follicle center lymphoma (PCFCL) of the face and scalp and alopecia areata of the scalp and beard bearing a clonal T-cell receptor gene rearrangement. To our knowledge, alopecia areata has not been previously reported in association with PCFCL. Both lesions regressed with topical imiquimod and systemic steroids, which suggests an inter-relationship in this case between the clonal B-cell and T-cell populations in driving outgrowth of these lesions.

Induction of T-cell responses against cutaneous T-cell lymphomas ex vivo by autologous dendritic cells transfected with amplified tumor mRNA.

Sézary syndrome (SzS), the leukemic variant of cutaneous T-cell lymphomas, is incurable. Dendritic cells (DCs) transfected with tumor mRNA can stimulate antitumor immunity in certain cancer patients. In this study, we determined whether mRNAs from Sézary cells could be used for loading DCs and stimulating antitumor immunity.