[Treatment of therapy-resistant acral ulcers with iloprost].

Patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) develop often acral ulcers which are resistant to therapy and may result in gangrene and amputation. We investigated the effects of iloprost infusion on the acral ulcers and necrosis in patients with five patients with SSc and one with mixed connective tissue disease who had been previously treated with various modalities without improvement. All patients had Raynaud phenomenon, acral ulcers and necrosis.

[Tolerance induction towards nickel. From animal model to humans].

Nickel is the most common contact allergen in humans. Until recently, many questions concerning tolerance mechanisms to nickel were unresolved. Besides human ex vivo, intervention and observation studies, the establishment of a reproducible mouse model has contributed to the analysis of these mechanisms.

[Pityriasis rubra pilaris].

Pityriasis rubra pilaris (PRP) is a rare papulosquamous disease with typical onset during the first and fifth decades. The skin disorder normally starts on the scalp and spreads caudally within a few weeks. It often results in a generalized erythroderma with sharply demarcated islands of sparing ("nappes claires").

[Purely cutaneous Rosai-Dorfman disease].

Sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathy or Rosai-Dorfman disease is a non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis of unknown etiolosy. The most characteristic feature is lymphadenopathy, especially that of cervical lymph nodes. In approximately 40% of patients there are extranodal manifestations of the disease.

Infectious nickel tolerance: a reciprocal interplay of tolerogenic APCs and T suppressor cells that is driven by immunization.

Previously, we reported that tolerance to nickel, induced by oral administration of Ni(2+) ions, can be adoptively transferred to naive mice with only 10(2) splenic T cells. Here we show that 10(2) T cell-depleted spleen cells (i.e.