Background: A needs assessment for patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) will support advancements in multidisciplinary care, treatment, research, advocacy, and philanthropy.

We compared the diagnoses made by one dermatologist via telemedicine with those of another dermatologist made in a face-to-face consultation. The patients first underwent a teledermatology consultation and then a face-to-face consultation. A general practitioner was present with the patient in the videoconference studio. Videoconferencing equipment connected at 384 kbit/s was used. The doctor-patient relationship and the satisfaction of the patients and dermatologists in the two settings were assessed, as well as technical conditions during the videoconferences. There were 121 patients, with a mean age of 40 years (range 17-82 years). There was a high degree of concordance between the two sets of diagnoses, with 72% complete agreement and 14% partial agreement between the two dermatologists. A total of 116 patients (96% of those included) completed a questionnaire. Both the patients and the dermatologists were in general satisfied with the videoconferences. Videoconferencing with a participating general practitioner may be useful in dermatology, but the technique should be used only for selected patients.

A total of 1481 hospital employees answered a questionnaire on atopy, hand eczema, and dry chapped hands. Out of 864 (58.7%) responders, 17% claimed to suffer from hand eczema. There was not significantly more hand eczema among women (17.6%) than men (15.7%). Atopic disposition was present in 17.5% of responders, of whom a significantly higher number (36.4%) claimed to have hand eczema. Dry chapped hands seemed to be a problem in 33.1%, mainly among nurses, assistant nurses and laboratory assistants. Technicians and X-ray assistants (38%) and kitchen workers (35.7%) claimed to suffer significantly more from hand eczema than others. Their working conditions were inspected. Following examination by a dermatologist, irritant contact eczema was diagnosed in 11 of 17, and occupational eczema in 3. None of the janitors or technical workers (all men) had hand eczema.

We report the results of a re-examination of a series of 57 biopsies from 50 patients with the clinical diagnosis of hidradenitis suppurativa, submitted to the Department of Pathology at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, Tromsø, Norway. The biopsy material came from hospitals and physicians all over northern Norway in the years 2000-2007. All tissue material was resectioned and stained with the immunohistochemical reagent, cytokeratin (AE1/AE3/PKC26), and that made it possible to divide the material into two different disease categories: (1) 36 biopsies from 30 cases had tissue inflammation after rupture of keratin-rich epidermal cysts, which we call 'horny cell inflammation', followed by extensive cutaneous thrombi and infarcts, and (2) 21 biopsies from 20 cases had 'apocrinitis' defined here as an inflammatory destruction of apocrine skin glands, and partly of close eccrine glands. The two disease populations differed: the patients with a diagnosis of horny cell inflammation were younger and mainly women; those with a diagnosis of apocrinitis, as defined here, were older, men and women equally represented.

No abstract