Incontinentia pigmenti is an uncommon neurocutaneous genodermatosis characterized by three stages; vesicular lesions, verrucous lesions and hyperpigmentation. A two-week-old female infant showed grouped erythema-based vesiculopustules on the whole body since birth. One month later, vesiculopustular lesions began to disappear gradually. At this time, she developed linear verrucous plaques on the dorsum of the feet and hands and reticulated hyperpigmented patches on the lower extremities. At 2 months of age, vesicular lesions completely disappeared and the pigmented patches spread to the abdomen which became darker with time. The verrucous lesions diminished at 3 months of age. There were no neurological or ocular defects. We describe a case of incontinentia pigmenti with typical clinical and pathological features at each stage.
Abdomen ; Female ; Foot ; Hand ; Humans ; Hyperpigmentation ; Incontinentia Pigmenti* ; Infant ; Lower Extremity ; Parturition

No abstract available.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis* ; Mycobacterium* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction*

We experienced a case of Reiter's syndrome. A 20-year-old Korean male patient of Reiter's syndrome was reported. He had been suffered from mucopurulent urethral discharge, followed by white scaly patches on the skin, fever, transient conjunctivitis and arthralgia. Initially he was treated with sodium salicylic acid (Aspirin), indomethacin 150 mg/day for arthralgia and prednisolone 30mg/day. In accordance with improvement of symptom., prednisolone was tapered to 12. 5mg, when methotrexate 20mg/wk was added for the prevention of side effects of long term use of corticosteroids, Conjunctivitis, arthritis, and skin lesions cleared within 7 months. With improvement of symptoms, prednisolone was tapered and methotrexate also was tapered slowly. Physical therapy for joint stiffness was done.
Adrenal Cortex Hormones ; Arthralgia ; Arthritis ; Conjunctivitis ; Fever ; Humans ; Indomethacin ; Joints ; Male ; Methotrexate* ; Prednisolone* ; Salicylic Acid ; Skin ; Sodium ; Young Adult

A case of epidermodysplasia verruciformis associated with squamous cell carcinoma occurred in 21 years old male. He had extensive flat-topped papules on the face, neck and the upper trunk, and verrucous lesions on the extremities, especially on the dorsa of hands and feet for 15 years. Several peanut sized ulcerative lesions on the forehead were noticed for 1 year and identified as squarnous cell carcinomi. The akin test with dinitrochlorobenzene, tuberculin, phytohemagglutinin, candidin and dermatophytin showed alI negative. T and B-cell counts were within norrnal limits, but IgG and IgD levels in serurn were incresed.
B-Lymphocytes ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell* ; Dinitrochlorobenzene ; Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis ; Extremities ; Foot ; Forehead ; Hand ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin D ; Immunoglobulin G ; Male ; Neck ; Tuberculin ; Ulcer ; Young Adult

No abstract available.
Erythema Multiforme* ; Erythema* ; Lymphoma*

BACKGROUND: Vitiligo is considered as an autoimmune disorder due to the generation and presence of autoantibodies directed against melanocyte antigens in the patients sera. Previous studies have revealed an increased incidence of organ-specific autoantibodies in vitiligo patients. A number of studies have demonstrated an increased frequency of thyroid autoantibodies in vitiligo patients and vitiligo is commonly seen in patients with clinical thyroid diseases. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate the incidence of antithyroid antibodies in vitiligo patients and to correlate the presence of these antibodies with factors such as sex, age, activity of the disease, duration of the disease and the type of vitiligo. Another aim of this study is to compare the incidence of abnormal thyroid function in those who have antithyroid antibody and those who don't. METHODS: One hundred and fifty seven vitiligo patients who visited vitiligo clinic in Samsung medical center from January of 1995 to November of 1996 were enrolled in this study. Detection and titration of antithyroid antibodies were performed by immunoradiometric assay. RESULTS: Among 157 patients tested, 17(10.8%) patients had antithyroglobulin antibodies and 10(6.4%) patients had antimicrosomal antibodies. Five patients had both antibodies. Statistically meaningful data are as follows; 1) Antimicrosomal antibody appeared less frequently in patients of childhood-onset. 2) Antithyroglobulin antibody was detected more frequently in active disease. Fifty nine out of 157 patients were examined for thyroid function. Four out of 22 patients with antithyroid antibody had abnormal thyroid function. None out of 37 patients without antithyroid antibody had abnormal thyroid function. CONCLUSION: The incidence of antithyroid antibodies according to onset age and activity is contradictory to previous reports, therefore large scaled study will be necessary to draw a conclusion.
Age of Onset ; Antibodies* ; Autoantibodies ; Humans ; Immunoradiometric Assay ; Incidence* ; Melanocytes ; Thyroid Diseases ; Thyroid Gland ; Vitiligo*

BACKGROUND: There is a long-standing controversy whether melanocytes in vitiligo of more than 1 year duration are actually lost or still present. Resolving this matter is essential in understanding the underlying pathology and for the development of the treatment. On previous immunohistochemical and ultrastructural studies of vitiligo lesions, damage of melanocyte and keratinocyte in early lesions were reported and complete absence of melanocyte in long standing lesions were known. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the existence of the differences in pathologic changes in melanocytes according to the duration of the lesion. METHODS: We investigated the vitiliginous skin samples from 31 patients with early(less than 1 year duration) vitiligo and 30 patients with long standing(l to 5 years duration) vitiligo under the electron microscopy. RESULTS: Multiple degenerative changes in melanocytes were observed in the early and long standing lesions. In long standing lesions, degeneration of melanocytes including pyknotic, in-dented nuclei, vacuolated cytoplasms and blunted dendrites were more pronounced than early lesions. Even in long standing lesions, definite or presumptive melanocytes were observed in 16(53.3%) of 30 cases. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the melanocytes of vitiligo lesions were damaged and that the percentage of degenerative changes increase in accordance with the duration of the lesion. However, in long standing lesions as well as in early lesions, some residual melanocytes can be observed ultrastructurally.
Cytoplasm ; Dendrites ; Humans ; Keratinocytes ; Melanocytes ; Microscopy, Electron ; Pathology ; Skin ; Vitiligo*

The patch test reaction is artificially induced allergic contact dermatitis to prove the cause of allergic contact dermatitis. Allergic contact dermatitis is classically regarded as a delayed hypersensitivity composed of the simple cutanous infiltration of lymphocytes and macrophages. Recently several authors observed new morphologic findings in allergic contact dermatitis including infiltration and piecemeal degranulation of basophils, degranulation and replication of fixed tissue mast, cells, increased vascular permeability leading to dermal and epidermal edema, microvascular alterations affecting endothelial cells and pericytes, and activation of the clotting system, with deposition of fibrin in a characeristic inravascular pattern in the reticular dermis. And they proposed new hypotbesis that the vaoactive amines released by basophils and mast cells have the crucial role in eliciting allergic contact dermatitis. We studied the effect of antihistamine on allergic contact dermatitis caused by dinitrochlorobenzene(DNCB). with phenirarnine maleate,(Avil) 136.5mg/d in 15 young adult male persons. Clinically the degree of the skin reaction is decreased in 9 of 15 persons after tie ingestion of pheniramine maleate. and histopathologically the epidermal and dermal changes are ameliorated in accordance with the clinic':1 improvement. Our results indicate that the histamine also participates in the pathogenesis of allergic contact dermatitis.
Amines ; Basophils ; Capillary Permeability ; Dermatitis, Allergic Contact ; Dermis ; Eating ; Edema ; Endothelial Cells ; Fibrin ; Histamine ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity, Delayed ; Lymphocytes ; Macrophages ; Male ; Mast Cells ; Patch Tests* ; Pericytes ; Pheniramine ; Skin ; Young Adult

Retroperitoneal liposarcoma comprises 12 to 45 percent of all liposarcoma. It has been a therapeutic dilemma and a less prognosis because of its tendency to attain a tremendous size due to early silent growth and difficult wide en bloc excision in the retroperitoneum. Here in we report a case of retroperitoneal liposarcoma in 51 year old male patient with a brief review of the literatures.
Humans ; Liposarcoma* ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prognosis

PURPOSE: Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy is thought to be a highly accurate method of assessing axillary nodal status in breast cancer. Furthermore, it can improve axillary staging by providing a more detailed examination of selected lymph nodes with a high probability of metastasis rather than the entire axillary nodes. The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence of SLN micrometastasis in node-negative breast cancer. METHODS: SLN biopsy was performed in 40 patients with clinically node-negative breast cancer using vital blue dye and/or radioisotope methods; the blue dye method was used in 21 cases, the isotope method in 14 cases, and a combination of both methods in 5 cases. All lymph nodes were evaluated by routine pathologic examination, and a more detailed examination was performed on sentinel nodes in node-negative cases; sentinel nodes were serially sectioned at an interval of 40micrometer depth followed by H&E and cytokeratin immunohistochemical (IHC) staining. RESULTS: Sentinel nodes were detected in 35 of 40 patients (87.5%). The mapping technique used in the remaining 5 cases was vital blue dye method only. Axillary node metastasis was found in 16 of 40 patients. Sentinel node biopsy accurately reflected the axillary node status in all cases; the sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy were 100, 100 and 100%, respectively. In 11 of 16 node-positive patients (68.8%), sentinel nodes were the only metastatic nodes. Occult micrometastases were found in SLN by serial section and IHC staining in 4 of 19 patients diagnosed as node- negative by routine pathological examination (21.1%). Occult micrometastasis of SLN was not correlated with primary tumor size, histologic grade or lymphovascular invasion with the exception of the S-phase fraction (P=0.023). CONCLUSION: SLN biopsy was a highly accurate method of assessing axillary node metastasis in breast cancer. Serial sectioning and IHC staining of SLN were sensitive methods in the detection of occult lymph node metastasis.
Biopsy ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Keratins ; Lymph Nodes* ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neoplasm Micrometastasis* ; Sensitivity and Specificity