Publications by authors named "Vermersch A"

Background: New highly effective drugs for moderate-to-severe cutaneous psoriasis are regularly marketed, and the hierarchy of treatments thus requires frequent review.

Objectives: A Delphi method was used to enable a structured expert consensus on the use of systemic treatments and phototherapy among adults with moderate-to-severe psoriasis.

Methods: The Delphi method consists in achieving a convergence of opinions among a panel of experts using several rounds of questionnaires with controlled feedback between rounds.

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CACNA1A pathogenic mutations are involved in various neurological phenotypes including episodic ataxia (EA2), spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA6), and familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM1). Epilepsy is poorly documented. We studied 18 patients (10 males) carrying de novo or inherited CACNA1A mutations, with median age of 2,5 years at epilepsy onset.

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Pathogenic variants in GNB5 cause an autosomal recessive neurodevelopmental disorder with neonatal sinus bradycardia. Seizures or epilepsy occurred in 10 of 22 previously reported cases, including 6 children from one family. We delineate the epileptology of GNB5 encephalopathy.

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Background: Atopic dermatitis is a highly prevalent, chronic, relapsing disease in both adults and children. On the severity spectrum, lower-end patients benefit from small amounts of topical anti-inflammatory treatments (TAT), whereas higher-end patients need systemic immunosuppressants; in-between patients are treated with TAT and phototherapy. The major therapeutic challenge in this population is the long-term control of disease activity, and the current TAT-based pro-active strategy does not meet all their needs.

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Article Synopsis
  • Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum, the bacteria causing syphilis, was genetically analyzed in 133 clinical samples from patients in France between 2010-2016 using a Multilocus Sequence Typing system.
  • The study identified 18 different allelic profiles among 112 fully typed samples, revealing notable genetic diversity, including several novel alleles.
  • Results showed that patients infected with Nichols-like strains were generally older and diagnosed with secondary syphilis more frequently, with specific genetic mutations linked to antibiotic resistance present in certain allelic profiles.
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Background: Abnormal interhemispheric synchrony has been described in many clinical compromises in brain function, but its prognostic value in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is unknown.

Objectives: The study aimed at describing the frequency of abnormal interhemispheric synchrony in infants with HIE and to explore its prognostic value. The main outcome was survival without major disabilities.

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Introduction: Pedicle screw fixation allows purchase of all three spinal columns without encroaching into the spinal canal improving fracture fixation, as well as deformity correction. Fortunately, neurologic injury associated with pedicle screw malposition is rare.

Case Presentation: A 19-year-old boy was surgically treated for severe right thoracic scoliosis associated with a Chiari Type 1 malformation and a C6 to T7 syringomyelia.

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Background: Homozygous mutations in WWOX were reported in eight individuals of two families with autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia type 12 and in two siblings with infantile epileptic encephalopathy (IEE), including one who deceased prior to DNA sampling.

Methods: By combining array comparative genomic hybridisation, targeted Sanger sequencing and next generation sequencing, we identified five further patients from four families with IEE due to biallelic alterations of WWOX.

Results: We identified eight deleterious WWOX alleles consisting in four deletions, a four base-pair frameshifting deletion, one missense and two nonsense mutations.

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To report three cases of bullous pemphigoid in patients treated with vildagliptin. Case 1: An 86-year-old woman presented with bullous pemphigoid after 1 month of treatment with vildagliptin and metformin. After introduction of clobetasol, the symptoms resolved although vildagliptin was continued.

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Aim: Hydroxychloroquine therapy during pregnancy is thought to be safe for foetuses. Normal visual function has been showed on clinical grounds in infants exposed in utero to hydroxychloroquine, but there are few visual neurophysiological data. Our study was designed to assess retina and visual pathways using electroretinogram and visual evoked potentials in a series of infants born to mothers treated by hydroxychloroquine for connective tissue diseases.

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Background: Usher syndrome type 1 needs to be diagnosed at early age in order to timely manage speech therapy, cochlear implantation, and genetic counseling. Few data are available regarding electroretinographic testing before the age of six years.

Aim: To describe electroretinographic changes in young children with Usher syndrome type 1.

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Hyperprolinemia type I (HPI) results from a deficiency of proline oxidase (POX), involved in the first step in the conversion of proline to glutamate. Diverse phenotypes were described in patients with HPI, prior to the identification of the POX gene (PRODH): whereas various patients were asymptomatic, others had neurological and extraneurological defects. The PRODH gene is located in the region deleted in velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS).

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To study the temporal organisation of memory-guided saccade control we used single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the left posterior parietal (PPC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) in eight healthy subjects. TMS was applied either following presentation of a visual target, i.e.

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Recent studies in the monkey suggest that the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is involved in control of eye movement, yet its functional significance in humans is unknown. Saccadic eye movements were studied in eight parkinsonian patients treated by bilateral electrical stimulation of the STN. STN stimulation improved the accuracy of memory guided saccades but not of reflexive visually guided saccades and had no effect on the antisaccade task.

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The role of the caudate nucleus in ocular motor control is not well determined in humans. Eye movements were recorded from a 45 year old man with infarctions involving bilaterally the body of the caudate nucleus, with a greater extent on the left side. The patient exhibited a pattern of eye movement abnormalities in which a delay dependent decrease of accuracy of memory guided saccades predominated.

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Single pulse transcranial magnet stimulation (TMS) was applied in five subjects during a saccadic gap task, i.e. with a temporal gap of 200 ms between the extinguishing of the central fixation point and the appearance of the lateral target.

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Saccadic eye movements are controlled by a cortical network composed of several oculomotor areas that are now accurately localized. Clinical and experimental studies have enabled us to understand their specific roles better. These areas are: (1) the parietal eye field (PEF) located in the intraparietal sulcus involved in visuospatial integration and in reflexive saccade triggering; (2) the frontal eye field (FEF), located in the precentral gyrus, involved in the preparation and the triggering of purposive saccades; and (3) the supplementary eye field (SEF) on the medial wall of the frontal lobe, probably involved in the temporal control of sequences of visually guided saccades and in eye-hand coordination.

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1. We used single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to explore the temporal organization of the cortical control of memory-guided saccades in eight humans. The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) or the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DPFC), which are both known to be involved in the control of such saccades, were stimulated on the right side at different time intervals after the presentation of a flashed lateral visual target.

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Objective: To determine the roles of the putamen and pallidum in ocular motor control.

Methods: Eye movements were recorded electro-oculographically in nine patients with bilateral focal lesions affecting the lentiform nucleus, and in 12 age matched control subjects. Reflexive visually guided saccades (gap task), antisaccades, memorised sequences of saccades, memory guided saccades (with visual input only, and with both visual and vestibular inputs), and predictive saccades (with and without gap) were studied.

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Culture techniques for isolation of HIV-1 from small amounts of whole blood (WB) treated with anticoagulant have been reported and gave results identical to those of culture of separated peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Some authors obtained much higher isolation rates when EDTA was used instead of heparin. We compared two previously described techniques for cultivation of HIV-1 from WB of adult HIV+ patients staged according to the CDC classification.

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A scheme for the cortical control of saccadic eye movements is proposed based partly on defects revealed by specific test paradigms in humans with discrete lesions. Three different cortical areas are capable of triggering saccades. The frontal eye field disengages fixation, and triggers intentional saccades to visible targets, to remembered target locations, or to the location where it is predicted that the target will reappear (i.

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