1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D is the biologically active form of vitamin D for the treatment of skin eruptions in patients with psoriasis. 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) elicits its action on skin eruptions through the vitamin D receptor (VDR). Allelic frequencies of VDR were studied in 86 normal subjects and 50 patients with psoriasis. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes and the VDR gene was amplified using a heminested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The products were digested with respective restriction enzymes ApaI, TaqI and BsmI. The restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) were coded as Aa, Tt or Bb. The frequencies of ApaI, BsmI and TaqI RFLP genotypes in psoriasis patients showed no significant differences compared with normal controls. The frequency of the AA genotype was significantly higher in pustulosis palmaris et plantaris patients than in psoriasis vulgaris patients ( P<0.05), and in psoriasis vulgaris patients than in psoriasis pustulosa patients ( P<0.01). In patients with psoriasis, the levels of serum alanine 2-oxoglutarate aminotransferase (ALT) were significantly higher in patients with the AA genotype (54.0+/-22.0 IU/l, n=4) than in those with the aa genotype (24.0+/-15.9 IU/l, n=27; P<0.02). The distribution of ApaI, BsmI, TaqI RFLP VDR genotypes showed no significant relationship to the PASI score, serum aspartate 2-oxoglutarate aminotransferase or triglyceride levels, or age at onset. These results show that the VDR genotype contributes to the liver dysfunction in patients with psoriasis, although no correlation was found between VDR genotype and the skin eruptions of psoriasis.

Abstract. We introduce a new level set method to simulate motion of spirals in a crystal surface governed by an eikonal-curvature flow equation. Our formulation allows collision of several spirals and different strength (different modulus of Burgers vectors) of screw dislocation centers. We represent a set of spirals by a level set of a single auxiliary function u minus a pre-determined multi-valued sheet structure function θ, which reflects the strength of spirals (screw dislocation centers). The level set equation used in our method for u − θ is the same as that of the eikonal-curvature flow equation.The multi-valued nature of the sheet structure function is only invoked when preparing the initial auxiliary function, which is nontrivial, and in the final step when extracting information such as the height of the spiral steps. Our simulation enables us not only to reproduce all speculations on spirals in a classical paper by Burton, Cabrera and Frank (1951) but also to find several new phenomena.

Our data suggest that nailfold capillary changes reflect microvascular changes of psoriasis and that the nailfold capillary pattern is a useful tool in evaluating nail involvement and the severity of psoriasis.

The authors report a rare case of intraspinal thoracic mobile neurinoma in a 51-year-old man. The clinical symptoms, especially thoracoabdominal discomfort, changed remarkably according to the patient's posture. Magnetic resonance images demonstrated that the level of the caudal end of the tumor varied between T4-5 and T9-10 with changes in the patient's position. Intraoperative myelography was useful in identifying the tumor location and choosing the level of the laminectomy.

No abstract

Human papilloma virus (HPV) is known to be an etiologic agent for benign warts of the skin. Recently, HPV have been detected in malignant skin and mucosal diseases suggesting that HPV infection can induce malignant skin tumors. In the present study, we examined the presence of mucosal HPV DNA in normal tissue, Bowen's disease (BD), Bowenoid papulosis (BP) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the skin. We detected the HPV DNA with polymerase chain reactions, and identified the type by DNA sequencing. In the results, we detected HPV DNA in none of the 17 normal controls, two of the three BP (66.7%), one of the 21 BD (4.8%), and six of the 26 SCC of the skin samples (23.0%). The occurrence rates of HPV in BP and SCC were significantly elevated compared to that of normal controls (P < 0.01 and P < 0.01, respectively). In addition, the occurrence rate of HPV in BP was significantly elevated compared to that of BD (P < 0.05). The reproducibility was confirmed with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with another primer pair. Of the two cases of BP with positive HPV DNA, one case showed HPV 31 and the other case HPV 16. The case of BD with positive HPV DNA showed HPV 31. Of the six cases of SCC with positive HPV DNA, one case showed HPV 16, another case HPV 34, and the other four cases HPV 31. These results showed that mucosal HPV, including HPV 31 and 16, could be detected in SSC of the skin. Mucosal HPV, not only the epidermodysplasia verruciformis type, appear to induce malignant skin tumors.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disease of unknown etiology, in which development of fibrosis, vascular insufficiency and inflammatory processes are prominent in the skin as well as in other organs. We studied the effect of photochemotherapy with quantitative echography in SSc. Dermal echo intensity and dermal thickness was measured using high-frequency dermal echography before and after therapy. The dermal echo intensity after photochemotherapy (33.51+/-9.34) significantly increased than that before therapy (21.23+/-6.00) (P < 0.01), while dermal thickness (1.20+/-0.20) significantly decreased than that before therapy (1.38+/-0.18) (P < 0.05). Photochemotherapy was more likely to improve dermal edema, not fibrosis, because echo intensity after treatment was significantly elevated with that before treatment in patients with edema. Quantitative echographic analysis was concluded to be a reliable method in evaluating the change of skin edema in SSc.

Our data suggest that in patients with SSC, nailfold capillary abnormalities correlate with pulmonary arterial hypertension as well as with clinical and laboratory findings indicating pulmonary hypertension.