Imiquimod: a Vascular Drug
Sidbury and colleagues report that topical Imiquimod applied to mice inhibited proliferation of model vascular tumor cells and initiated apoptosis. Is this a direct vascular effect or an immune-mediated vascular effect, and might Imiquimod's effect on warts and tumors have a vascular component to its pharmacology? J Invest Dermatol 121:1205–1209, 2003
RX: Squeeze an orange on your skin each day after rubbing it with an apricot pit
Removing the stratum corneum is a logical way to increase vitamin C absorption. Lee and colleagues used lasers or microdermabrasion to remove stratum corneum, and expectedly increased vitamin C transepidermal transport. Other chemical and physical techniques will no doubt be applied to increase penetration of vitamin C and other molecules with low transepidermal absorption rates. The results are important in that they show that the stratum corneum is the only barrier to Vitamin C absorption. J Invest Dermatol 121:1118–1125, 2003
Don't let your iron tank run near empty
Many patients have diets low in iron, have bleeding and loss of iron, and yet do not take iron supplements. How and if low iron stores are associated with alopecia is a frequent clinical conundrum. Kantor and colleagues determined plasma ferritin levels in controls and small groups of women with telogen effluvium, androgenetic alopecia and alopecia areata. Those with telogen effluvium had comparable levels to controls, but the other two groups had decreased ferritin levels. Since alopecia areata and androgenetic alopecia are equal opportunity diseases with respect to the patient's sex, studies on males would be interesting. J Invest Dermatol 121:985–988, 2003
Better Clinical Diagnoses Through Chemistry
Molecular genetics, not surprisingly, may be the ultimate arbiter of those difficult to diagnose cases presented at clinical conferences. Two of the authors had previously published patients, previously reported by van Steensel and coworkers as unusual forms of Pachyonychia Congenita. No keratin abnormalities were found, but the families have a connexin 30 missense mutation, and the cases were molecularly and clinically, in retrospect, hidrotic ectodermal dysplasia. Many other atypical cases or "forms fruste" can now be clarified with molecular probes. Precise diagnosis allows proper focusing on associated features of diseases. J Invest Dermatol 121:1035–1038, 2003
Iron and inflammation
Gira and coworkers studied the role of iron in inflammation and the cell cycle in human vascular endothelial cells. Excess iron has also been attributed to have a significant role in some skin inflammatory diseases. Many of these roles may be through iron's essential role in the induction of interferon regulatory factor, a transcription factor, involved in both inflammation and the cell cycle, that increases VCAM-1, iNOS, Il-12 and I1-15. J Invest Dermatol 121:1191–1196, 2003
