Background: Acne vulgaris is a chronic condition which commonly affects adolescents and exerts a psychological burden on its sufferers. Non-adherence to acne treatment is believed to be a major factor contributing to treatment failure. In this study, we characterize the profile of a non-adherent Asian acne patient, and evaluate the relationship between treatment adherence and acne severity and quality of life. Methods: A total of 53 acne patients were recruited from the Dermatology outpatient clinic of National University Hospital, Singapore, and followed up over a 3 month period in this prospective observational study. The Elaboration d’un outil d’evaluation de l’observance (ECOB) adherence assessment tool was used to assess adherence to acne treatment, and acne severity was evaluated using the US Food and Drug Administration Center 5-point Acne Severity Score (ASS). Results: Of the 53 study participants, 29 (54.7%) were non-adherent to acne treatment. There was no significant difference in gender, educational level or acne severity at time of presentation between adherent and non-adherent patients. Adherent patients had a significantly larger improvement in acne severity scores compared to non-adherent patients (change in ASS: -1.33 ± 0.64 vs -0.76 ± 0.83, p = 0.008), but this did not translate to a significant improvement in quality of life. Conclusion: Adherence to acne treatment was not associated with demographic characteristics or acne severity. Factors contributing to adherence to acne treatment are complex and multi-faceted, and individualized motivation and education of each patient may be the method of choice in encouraging treatment adherence.

Objective A phase Ⅱ trial of anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody CT-011,an anti PD-1 humanized monoclonal antibody combined with rituximab therapy in patients with relapsed follicular lymphoma (FL) were conducted.Methods In order to evaluate the safety and efficacy of CT-011,the impacts of CT-011 on immune cells both from the peripheral blood (PB) samples and tumor microenvironment were examined.PB and core needle biopsies from involved lymph nodes were collected prior to and on day 14 after the first infusion of CT-011.PB mononuclear cells (PBMC) were analyzed by multiparametric flow cytometry to determine various immune cell subsets.Whole genome gene expression profiling (GEP) was performed on core needle biopsies.Results A significant increase in the absolute number of PB immune cells were observed in day 14 samples compared with baseline including total lymphocyte count (P ＜ 0.01),CD+3 T cells (P =0.01),CD+4 T cells (P ＜ 0.01).Comparison of GEP from core needle biopsies obtained pretreatment and day 14 (n =8 pairs) showed up regulation of several genes associated with T cell activation.Conclusion Administration of CT-011 was associated with increase in the numbers of CD+4 T cells and resulted in activation of T cells in the PB and the tumor microenvironment in FL.These results provide insight into the mechanism of action of CT-011 and offer a predictive biomarker for selection of patients for future clinical trials with this class of agents in FL.