Actinic keratosis, Bowen's disease and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) are heterogeneous keratinocytic skin lesions. Biomarkers that can accurately stratify these lesion types are needed to support a new paradigm of personalized and precise management of skin neoplasia. In this paper, we used a data independent acquisition proteomics workflow, sequential window acquisition of all theoretical mass spectra, to analyze formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of normal skin and keratinocytic skin lesions, including welldifferentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated cSCC lesions. We quantified 3,574 proteins across the 93 samples studied. Differential abundance analysis identified 19, 5, and 6 protein markers exclusive to actinic keratosis, Bowen's disease and cSCC lesions, respectively. Among cSCC lesions of various levels of tumor differentiation, 118, 230, and 17 proteins showed a potential as biomarkers of welldifferentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated cSCC lesions, respectively. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that actinic keratosis and cSCC lesions were associated with decreased apoptosis, and Bowen's disease lesions with over-representation of the DNA damage repair pathway. Differential expression of alternatively spliced FGFR2, Rho guanosine triphosphatase signaling, and RNA metabolism proteins were associated with the level of cSCC tumor differentiation. Proteome profiles also separated keratinocytic skin lesion subtypes on principal components analysis. Overall, protein markers have excellent potential to discriminate keratinocytic skin lesion subtypes and facilitate new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
We describe three cases of hair loss in a female pattern hair loss (FPHL) distribution with histologic features of lichen planopilaris (LPP). All patients had a history of diffuse, gradual hair loss in a Christmas tree pattern that clinically presented as FPHL on gross and dermoscopic examination. Notably, there were no characteristic clinical signs of LPP and no histologic features of FPHL. These cases are most consistent with cicatricial pattern hair loss (CPHL). This relatively new entity is similar to fibrosing alopecia in a pattern distribution (FAPD) in that they are both scarring alopecias confined to a FPHL distribution, but CPHL lacks the clinical signs of perifollicular erythema and perifollicular keratosis seen in FAPD. These three cases may present an early, subtle form of CPHL and will be of interest to clinicians and histopathologists alike.
An 85-year-old man presented with an ulcerated pruritic nodule on the scalp. Histology of a deep curette specimen showed the typical features of a squamoid eccrine ductal carcinoma: superficial squamous differentiation and deep ductal structures.
Systemic AL amyloidosis is known to be associated with plasma cell dyscrasias, including multiple myeloma. The cutaneous manifestations of systemic AL amyloidosis are varied, but typically include waxy plaques or subcutaneous nodules. We report a woman who presented with bilateral eruptions of hyperpigmented plaques in her axillae, which were diagnosed as milia en plaque. She had a history of multiple myeloma, for which she was under the care of a haematologist. This is the first documented case, to our knowledge, of an eruption in the axillae being milia en plaque.
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