Children with RRP report a lower quality of life than do those who are healthy, and a quality of life similar to that of those who have other chronic medical problems. The parent reports also reflect a lower quality of life for children affected by this disease, as compared with healthy children. The PedsQL demonstrated a statistically significant low HRQOL in children with RRP; however, the clinical implications of this finding appear trivial. A distinct, disease-specific survey for RRP, if developed, would have enhanced responsiveness and sensitivity to change (due to the natural course of the disease and/or surgical treatments).
Objective:To determine whether acellular human dermis is degraded by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), a large class of matrix-degrading enzymes.
Methods:The degradation of acellular human dermis specimens was evaluated in vitro. Wild-type murine fibroblasts with a broad-spectrum MMP inhibitor, GM6001, and MMP-2-deficient fibroblasts were placed on the basement membrane and dermal surfaces of acellular human dermis. Matrix degradation and fibroblast infiltration into the matrix were assessed after a 20-day incubation period.
Results:The basement membrane thickness of the specimens cultured with wild-type fibroblasts was significantly less than that of specimens cultured with GM6001 (PϽ.001), and the infiltration of fibroblasts into the der-mal surface was limited by the addition of GM6001 (P=.002). To determine whether MMP-2 was involved in this in vitro phenotype, MMP-2-deficient fibroblasts were assessed in comparison with wild-type fibroblasts. Wildtype fibroblasts degraded the basement membrane surface (PϽ.001) and infiltrated the dermal surface (P=.003) more efficiently than did MMP-2-deficient fibroblasts.
Conclusions:The results from our in vitro experiments suggest that MMPs and specifically MMP-2 may play an important role in the resorption of acellular human dermis. Addition of MMP inhibitors to implanted dermal matrices may slow fibroblast infiltration and improve their longevity in vivo.
We describe an unusual case ofbilateral intraparenchymal parotid stones with unilateral parotitis in a 17-year-old boy. The patient went on to develop multiple parotid abscesses, which we treated with a superfi cial parotidectomy. To our knowledge, this is only the second report of intraparenchymal parotid stones in a pediatric patient.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.