It appears that certain skin diseases such as dermatitis and eczema, superficial mycoses and scabies cause serious health problems in the region. Emphasis should be placed on this group of common skin diseases at all levels of personal health care, and suitable public health policies should be implemented in order to manage this problem rationally.

Alopecia areata (AA) is a chronic disease which esthetic outcomes may result in deep effects on mental disorders of patients. In this case-control study, we compared the mental health of 68 patients diagnosed with AA with 68 healthy individuals using Hamilton anxiety and depression rating scales. There were significant differences between the case and control groups regarding the prevalence of anxiety and depression. The means of anxiety scores in cases and control group were 12.76±7.21 vs 8.54±6.37, P=0.003. Likewise, the means of depression scores for the groups were 12.84±4.03 vs 6.22±4.95, P=0.001. Further-more, patients with AA were exposed to depression approximately five times and to anxiety about three times more than normal people. Our study revealed a high prevalence of anxiety and depression in AA patients. Dermatologists should pay more attention on psychological effect of the disease on the patients.

Lichen planus and vitiligo are common skin disorders. Colocalization which is rarely reported may consider the koebner phenomenon related to the photo damage causing initiation of lichen planus over vitiliginous skin. We report a 37-year-old mother and her 23-year-old daughter, both farmers and known cases of vitiligo with subsequent gradual onset of pruritic skin lesions of lichen planus starting first over previous vitiliginous skin on sun exposed areas. Coexistence and colocalization of lichen planus and vitiligo in two members of a family is very rare and has not been reported previously according to our knowledge. Predominant colocalization was on vitiliginous areas which may explain actinic damage as a triggering factor for inducing lichen planus in long-standing vitiligo and supports its pathogenic relationship.

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van der Woude syndrome (VWS) is a congenital malformation characterized by lower lip pits with or without cleft lip or cleft palate. It is an autosomal-dominant inherited disorder with variable expression in clinical manifestation. Microdeletion in chromosome bands 1q32-q41 and recently identified mutation in interferon regulatory factor 6 gene (IRF6) have been reported to cause VWS. We report a case of VWS with lower lip pits as its main clinical manifestation without associated cleft in lip or palate. No mutation or deletion was found in the IRF6 gene or promoter site, indicating the heterogeneity of this defect.