Publications by authors named "Sonja Hetzer"

Background: Institutes of dermatopathology are faced with considerable challenges including a continuously rising numbers of submitted specimens and a shortage of specialized health care practitioners. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is one of the most common tumors in the fair-skinned western population and represents a major part of samples submitted for histological evaluation. Digitalizing glass slides has enabled the application of artificial intelligence (AI)-based procedures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Accurate and fast assessment of resection margins is an essential part of a dermatopathologist's clinical routine. In this work, we successfully develop a deep learning method to assist the dermatopathologists by marking critical regions that have a high probability of exhibiting pathological features in whole slide images (WSI). We focus on detecting basal cell carcinoma (BCC) through semantic segmentation using several models based on the UNet architecture.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Bosentan is a dual endothelin receptor antagonist initially introduced for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension and recently approved for the treatment of digital ulcers in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). Our clinical observations indicate that bosentan therapy may be associated with an increased frequency of centrofacial telangiectasia (TAE). Here, we sought to analyze the frequency of TAE in patients with SSc who were treated with either bosentan or the prostacyclin analog iloprost.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In recent years inhibitors directed against the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have evolved as effective targeting cancer drugs. Characteristic papulopustular exanthemas, often described as acneiform rashes, are the most frequent adverse effect associated with this class of novel cancer drugs and develop in > 90% of patients. Notably, the rash may significantly compromise the patients' quality of life, thereby potentially leading to incompliance as well as dose reduction or even termination of the anti-EGFR therapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF