Objective: To determine if treatment with subantimicrobial-dose (SD) doxycycline hyclate (20-mg tablets taken twice daily) improved clinical outcome, had any detectable effect on skin flora, led to overgrowth or colonization of skin by opportunistic pathogens, or resulted in an increase in antibiotic resistance by the surface skin microflora in patients with moderate acne compared with placebo.
Topical application of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is one of the most effective clinical strategies available to treat actinic keratosis (AK). During treatment, an apparent toxic skin reaction occurs before dermal quiescence ensues. We report a case of a typical flare of AK in a woman treated with capecitabine for advanced breast cancer.
Cyclosporine (CSA) is a widely used immunosuppressive agent, predominantly for transplant patients. It is well recognized that transplant patients are prone to develop squamous carcinoma of the skin and mucosa, and this high incidence of squamous carcinoma in the transplant population cannot be explained by immunosuppression alone. We hypothesize that CSA may play a significant role in the transformation of normal epidermal squamous cells to carcinoma. CSA is a specific ligand for calcineurin, a ubiquitously expressed cellular serine/threonine phosphatase, that plays important roles in the immune system and cardiac muscles. Using global gene-profiling methods, we studied the short-time CSA effect on the squamous cell line (SCC-015) using Affymetrix human gene chips (Human U133, 2.0 plus chip). Multiple groups of genes were identified to be responsive to CSA treatment, including many genes of unknown functions. We then used reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and immunoblot analyses to selectively confirm the results from the chips analyses with emphasis on the regulatory molecules important for cellular functions of apoptosis, DNA damage repair, and cellular transformation. This global gene-profiling study indicated that CSA not only functions as an immunosuppressant on the immune system, but also activates/inhibits a wide array of genes important for cell-cycle regulation, apoptosis, and oncogene/tumor-suppressor activation. These functions of CSA on skin and mucosa systems at the molecular level are likely important in the pathogenesis of squamous carcinoma in transplant patients.
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.