We report the first documented case of an atypical form of transient reactive papulotranslucent acrokeratoderma (TRPA) in a patient heterozygous for the ΔF508 CFTR(cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) mutation. TRPA represents a condition that classically presents with translucent to white plaques that become evident after water exposure. An atypical form with persistent lesions has also been described. Our patient is a 16-year-old girl with small, white papules coalescing into pebbly plaques on the palms. This condition is exacerbated after 5-10 min of water exposure and is associated with discomfort. The skin biopsy showed expanded stratum corneum, orthohyperkeratosis and dilation of eccrine ducts consisting with TRPA. A cystic fibrosis carrier state, barrier function defect, hyperhidrosis and the intake of cyclooxygenase inhibitors may have been pathogenic factors in our patient.
Limitation of ankle movement may contribute to calf muscle pump failure, which is thought to contribute to venous leg ulcer formation, which affects nearly 1 million Americans. We therefore wished to study ankle movement in patients with venous leg ulcers and its effect on healing. Using goniometry, we measured baseline ankle range of motion in venous leg ulcer patients from a Phase 2 dose-finding study of an allogeneic living cell bioformulation. Two hundred twenty-seven patients were enrolled in four active treatment groups and one standard-care control group, all receiving compression therapy. Goniometry data from a control group of 49 patients without venous disease, from a previous study, was used for comparison. We found patients with active venous leg ulcers had significantly reduced ankle range of motion compared with the control group (p = 0.001). After 12 weeks of therapy, baseline ankle range of motion was not associated with healing, as there was no significant difference between healed and nonhealed groups, suggesting that ankle range of motion is not important in venous leg ulcer healing or, more likely, is overcome by compression. However, patients with venous ulcers located on the leg (as opposed to the ankle) had significantly higher ankle range of motion for plantar flexion and inversion (p = 0.021 and p = 0.034, respectively) and improved healing with both cell bioformulation and standard care (p = 0.011), suggesting that wound location is an important variable for ankle range of motion as well as for healing outcomes.
Understanding and managing patients' expectations can help improve their adherence to treatment for chronic wounds; however, little is known concerning about their expectations regarding healing time. Recruited subjects were asked to predict how long their wounds would take to heal and their charts were reviewed to retrieve real time of healing. We recruited 100 subjects from which 77% have healed. Fifty-three subjects (68.8%) had a longer healing time than they predicted (underestimated), and 17 (22.1%) had a shorter healing time than they predicted (overestimated). Subjects with shorter wound duration history tended to predict shorter healing time than subjects with longer wound duration (p < 0.01). However, wound duration did not affect prediction accuracy (p = 0.65). Subjects with chronic wounds seem more often to underestimate their time of healing. Wound duration significantly influenced patients' prediction time, although it did not make their prediction more accurate. Patient education about expectations may be important as patients often expect their wounds to heal faster than they actually do.
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