No abstract

Q-switched Nd:YAG laser provides an effective and safe treatment option for labial lentigines associated with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome.

We report a case of primary cutaneous zygomycosis caused by Rhizomucor variabilis and review 6 cases reported from China that share similar features and are different from those cases caused by other species of Mucorales. It is noteworthy that all 6 of the cases were observed in 3 adjacent provinces of eastern China.

Candida parapsilosis, which was previously considered to be a complex of three genetically distinct groups, has emerged as a significant agent of nosocomial infections. Recently, this complex was separated into three species: C. parapsilosis sensu stricto, C. orthopsilosis and C. metapsilosis. In China, data pertaining to these fungi are limited. In this study, we examined 57 isolates of members of the C. parapsilosis complex collected from four cities in East China, i.e., Nanjing (n = 22), Nanchang (n = 20), Shanghai (n = 12) and Jinan (n = 3). C. parapsilosis sensu stricto represented 71.9% of all isolates, while C. metapsilosis accounted for the remaining 28.1%. C. orthopsilosis could not be identified. A significantly high prevalence of C. metapsilosis was observed in strains recovered from Nanchang, 60% (12/20) of the isolates were C. metapsilosis. Sequence analysis of internal transcribed spacer region revealed two unevenly distributed genotypes among the C. metapsilosis strains. A PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay was described for rapid identification. The strains were susceptible to fluconazole, voriconazole, amphoterincin B and micafungin. Six (15%) isolates of C. parapsilosis sensu stricto and three (18.8%) of C. metapsilosis were found to be dose-dependent susceptible to itraconazole. C. parapsilosis sensu stricto strains were less susceptible to micafungin than C. metapsilosis.

Objective This study used deep learning for diagnosing common, benign hyperpigmentation. Method In this study, two convolutional neural networks were used to identify six pigmentary diseases, and a disease diagnosis model was established. Because the distribution of lesions in the original training picture is very complex, we cropped the image around the lesions, trained the network on the extracted lesion images, and fused the verification results of the overall picture and the extracted picture to assess the model performance in identifying hyperpigmented dermatitis pictures. Finally, we evaluated the image recognition performance of the two convolutional neural networks and the converged networks in the test set through a comparison of the converged network and the physicians’ assessments. Results The AUC of DenseNet‐96 for the overall picture was 0.98, whereas the AUC of ResNet‐152 was 0.96; therefore, we concluded that DenseNet‐96 performed better than ResNet‐152. From the AUC, the converged network has the best performance. The converged network model achieved a comprehensive classification performance comparable to that of the doctors. Conclusions The diagnostic model for benign, pigmented skin lesions based on convolutional neural networks had a slightly higher overall performance than the skin specialists.

We report a case of subcutaneous phaeohyphomycosis caused by Corynespora cassiicola. Molecular identification of this pathogen on grasses confirms that it may be involved in human infection, as previously reported once in pre-molecular literature. In vitro antifungal susceptibility data of the strain are provided. The patient was successfully treated with oral terbinafine with topical povidone iodine in accordance with the results obtained through in vitro susceptibility testing.

No abstract

The aim of this study is to characterize extracellular phospholipase, proteinase, and esterase activities of Candida parapsilosis and C. metapsilosis isolated from clinical sources. Using PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of the secondary alcohol dehydrogenase (SADH) gene fragment, we identified 20 as C. parapsilosis and 11 as C. metapsilosis from 31 isolates of C. parapsilosis species complex. No C. orthopsilosis was identified. A significantly high isolation frequency of C. metapsilosis (35.5%) was observed. Subsequent evaluation of enzymatic profile showed that 90.5% of C. parapsilosis and 91.7% of C. metapsilosis isolates were phospholipase producers. No difference in phospholipase activity was observed between two species. In terms of proteinase, 81.0% of C. parapsilosis and 83.3% of C. metapsilosis isolates were positive. A higher level of proteinase activity was detected in C. parapsilosis. A remarkably high proportion of both C. parapsilosis and C. metapsilosis isolates exhibited strong phospholipase and proteinase activities, suggesting that the production of these two enzymes might be common for them. On the other hand, both species similarly displayed rare esterase activity, with only one C. parapsilosis and two C. metapsilosis isolates being positive. Our data may further add to the confusion concerning the hydrolytic enzymatic activities of the C. parapsilosis complex, and a wider collection of isolates and standardized methods may help to address the issue.