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Striae distensae are common undesirable skin lesions of significant aesthetic concern. To compare the efficacy of two fluences (75 and 100 J/cm) of long-pulsed Nd:YAG laser in the treatment of striae. Forty-five patients (Fitzpatrick skin types III-V) aged between 11 and 36 years with striae (23 patients with rubra type and 22 with alba type) were enrolled in the study. Each stria was divided into three equal sections, whereby the outer sections were treated with long-pulsed 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser, at a fluence of 75 or 100 J/cm, and fixed laser settings of 5 mm spot size and 15 ms pulse duration. The middle section was an untreated control. All subjects received four treatments at 3 weeks interval. Three 2-mm punch biopsies were taken from six subjects, all of the same stria, one before treatment and the other two from the outer sections, 3 months after the last session. Paraffin-embedded skin sections were subjected to histological and quantitative morphometric studies for collagen and elastic fibres. Results were assessed clinically through photographic evaluation and were considered satisfactory for both doctors and patients. A significant improvement in appearance of striae alba using 100 J/cm was found while striae rubra improved more with 75 J/cm. Histologically, collagen and elastin fibres increased in posttreatment samples. A satisfactory improvement in striae distensae lesions was seen through clinical and histological evaluation. Thus, long-pulsed Nd:YAG laser is a safe and effective module of laser treatment for these common skin lesions.

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Background Vitamin D is a regulatory factor for skin immune functions through vitamin D receptor, which is expressed on many immune cells. Vitamin D receptor is located on chromosome 12q 13.11 and has many single nucleotide polymorphisms. Some of them were hypothesized to be associated with psoriasis. Psoriasis is a genetic disease that is greatly affected by environmental factors. Methods A total of 135 psoriasis patients and 114 healthy controls were recruited. Both had a measurement of serum vitamin D and two vitamin D receptor variants:, rs1544410: G > A (HGVS:NC_000012.12:g.47846052) and rs7975232: C > A (HGVS: NC_000012.12:g.47845054). We assessed the relationship between vitamin deficiency as well as the two gene polymorphisms with psoriasis susceptibility and severity. Results Serum vitamin D levels were not significantly different between cases and controls. However, a significant association between vitamin D levels and severity was observed. We attributed this to our finding that rs7975232 was more significantly polymorphic among cases than controls, while rs1544410 polymorphism did not show a significant difference among the 2 groups. Conclusion We did not find a significant difference in serum vitamin D levels between cases and controls. Yet, psoriasis severity was significantly associated with serum vitamin D levels. We attributed this to other findings that the vitamin D receptor rs7975232 gene is polymorphic in psoriasis patients. At the same time, rs1544410 was not significantly more polymorphic in psoriasis patients. Both genes’ polymorphisms were associated with severe psoriasis.

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