Comanagement of Rashes by Primary Care Providers and Dermatologists: A Retrospective Study.

Background: There is a high demand for managing skin disease, and dermatologists are in short supply.

Objectives: To better understand how rashes and other specific skin conditions are co-managed by primary care providers (PCPs) and dermatologists, we estimated the frequency with which PCPs sought consultation with or referral to dermatology and the proportion of patients who had a follow-up dermatology office visit in the following 90 days.

Design And Setting: The retrospective longitudinal study included 106,459 patients with a skin condition diagnosed by 3,830 PCPs, from January 2017 to March 2017.

Association of teledermatology workflows with standardising co-management of rashes by primary care physicians and dermatologists.

Introduction: For patients with a rash, the effect of teledermatology workflow on utilization has not been defined. We compared utilization across four teledermatology workflows in patients with a rash.

Methods: The observational longitudinal cohort study included 28,857 Kaiser Permanente Northern California members with a new rash diagnosis seen in primary care and with dermatology advice obtained using teledermatology.

Comparative effectiveness study of face-to-face and teledermatology workflows for diagnosing skin cancer.

Background: The effectiveness and value of teledermatology and face-to-face workflows for diagnosing lesions are not adequately understood.

Objective: We compared the risks of biopsy and cancer diagnosis among 2 face-to-face workflows (direct referral and roving dermatologist) and 4 teledermatology workflows.

Methods: Retrospective study of 59,279 primary care patients presenting with a lesion from January through June 2017.

Zinc deficiency.

Purpose Of Review: Zinc plays an essential role in numerous biochemical pathways. Zinc deficiency affects many organ systems, including the integumentary, gastrointestinal, central nervous system, immune, skeletal, and reproductive systems. This article aims to discuss zinc metabolism and highlights a few of the diseases associated with zinc deficiency.

A practical review and update on the management of pruritus sine materia.

Pruritus can be divided into several categories: pruritoceptive, neurogenic, neuropathic, and psychogenic. Neuropathic itch is caused by lesions of afferent neural pathways. Psychogenic itch is secondary to primary psychiatric disorders.

Induction of endostatin expression in meniscal fibrochondrocytes by co-culture with endothelial cells.

Introduction: The ultimate goal after meniscus damage is the preservation of the original meniscal tissue, which is often impossible due to the limited healing capacity of meniscal lesions, especially in the avascular zone. Factors produced by endothelial cells of meniscal vessels may contribute to better wound healing in vascularized zones. We therefore investigated the expression of different angiogenic factors, growth hormones and cytokines in human fibrochondrocytes and in fibrochondrocytes upon co-culture with endothelial cells, to examine mechanisms of repair of meniscal injury in more detail and to investigate the potential use of endothelial cells in co-cultures for autologous meniscal repair utilizing tissue engineering technology.

Third-generation lentivirus vectors efficiently transduce and phenotypically modify vascular cells: implications for gene therapy.

Grafting of saphenous vein (SV) conduits into the arterial circulation triggers a number of adaptive pathological changes characterized by progressive medial thickening, neointima formation and accelerated atheroma. Previous studies have shown that modification of vein graft biology is possible by adenovirus (Ad)-mediated gene transfer, although gene expression is transient. Advancement of vascular gene therapy to the clinic is compromised by the lack of safe and efficient vector systems that provide sustained therapeutic gene delivery to the vasculature.