Homocysteine levels correlated with psoriasis area and severity index in the patient group, which shows the disease severity. The increase in cardiovascular mortality with the severity of psoriasis might be also due to the effects of homocysteine.

No abstract

A 30-year-old man presented with indurated violaceous plaques all over his body that had been present for 7 months. The patient had also had vitiligo for 3.5 years, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and cirrhosis for a 2-year period. Histopathologic examination of the indurated plaques confirmed the diagnosis of morphea. Localized scleroderma and vitiligo have only rarely been reported to occur simultaneously. Although the etiologies of vitiligo and morphea are both uncertain, their association with autoimmune diseases favors an autoimmune hypothesis. Both vitiligo and morphea might have appeared coincidentally. However, this association could be significant because it may be related to the presence of HBV and alterations in the immune system that are caused by this virus. Therefore, this rare combination of vitiligo and morphea in a patient with chronic HBV infection warrants attention because it suggests a possible immunologic association, which may merit future study.

No abstract

Cutaneous diseases can indicate the presence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The aim of this study was to analyse the frequency of cutaneous findings in HCV infection and HCV RNA positive cases in Turkey. Fifty consecutive patients positive for anti-HCV antibodies,negative controls, and patients positive and negative for HCV RNA were examined for any cutaneous findings that could be associated with HCV infection. The risk of infected patients developing cutaneous finding was higher than for non-infected individuals. Only pruritus showed a statistically significant difference in separate assessment of cutaneous symptoms. There were no differences in cutaneous findings in HCV RNA positive and negative cases. The risk of developing a dermatological finding, especially pruritus, was increased in HCV infection.However, because the number of patients in this study was too low to allow statistical evaluation of the prevalence of dermatological symptoms and diseases, multicentre studies including large numbers of patients are needed.