Currently, imaging technologies that enable dermsurgeons to visualize non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC) in vivo preoperatively are lacking, resulting in excessive or incomplete removal. Multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) is a volumetric imaging tool to differentiate tissue chromophores and exogenous contrast agents, based on differences in their spectral signatures and used for high-resolution imaging of functional and molecular contrast at centimeter scale depth. We performed MSOT imaging with two- and three-dimensional handheld scanners on 21 Asian patients with NMSC. The tumors and their oxygenation parameters could be distinguished from normal skin endogenously. The lesion dimensions and depths were extracted from the spectral melanin component with three-dimensional spatial resolution up to 80 μm. The intraclass correlation coefficient correlating tumor dimension measurements between MSOT and ex vivo histology of excised tumors, showed good correlation. Real-time 3D imaging was found to provide information on lesion morphology and its underlying neovasculature, indicators of the tumor’s aggressiveness.

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The DC-HIL/syndecan-4 pathway inhibits human allogeneic T-cell responses. Eur J Immunol 2009;39:965e74.

We report a series of four patients who presented with complaints of diffuse non-scarring alopecia. They had similar clinical features of alopecia, hyperseborrhea, and distinct keratinaceous hair casts that encircled the hair shafts. Propionibacterium acnes was isolated from two of the patients’ scalp, and Gram-positive, Giemsa-positive bacteria were seen in the hair follicles in the scalp biopsy of one of the patients. The patients’ symptoms did not respond to standard treatment for seborrheic dermatitis, but responded to a course of systemic antibiotics targeting P. acnes. We propose a role for P. acnes colonization of the terminal hair follicles in the pathogenesis of hair casts, and possibly diffuse non-scarring alopecia. Possible mechanisms of pathogenesis are discussed with a literature review.

We report a case of a 48-year-old Malay female who presented with multiple tumors arising from a large nevus sebaceus on her right parieto-temporal scalp. Histologically, the tumors corresponded to a sebaceoma with carcinomatous change, a poroma and a trichoblastoma. Immunohistochemical staining of the sebaceous tumor with p53 showed strong within the areas of carcinomatous change, while there was negative to weak staining within the sebaceoma-like areas. A discussion on the potential secondary neoplasms from a nevus sebaceus ensues, with a review of this literature on multiple tumors from a nevus sebaceus.