Background Association of different treatments are often used in erythrodermic psoriasis in order to increase the effectiveness and decrease the incidence of side effects due to single drugs.
...Materials and methods Three in-patients affected by erythrodermic psoriasis, not responding to cyclosporine, (two patients) and etretinate, (one patient), were treated with the association cyclosporine plus etretinate.
Results Clinical response was prompt to the combined therapy. The two drugs were tapering off gradually over 6 months; the patients maintained the remission for prolonged period.
Conclusions Combined cyclosporine-etretinate therapy may be considered as an effective and well tolerated treatment of erythrodermic psoriasis in patients not responding to monotherapy regimen.
In the past few years important changes in the occurrence of scyphomedusae have been observed in the North Adriatic Sea and in particular in the Gulf of Trieste, often reaching alarming proportions. ...Spring coastal blooms of C. hysoscella were observed in 1989. Until 1989, this jellyfish was considered to be innocuous but the data presented show its cutaneous toxicity in man.
In the present study we evaluated the effects of UVA irradiation on the serum T cell subpopulations (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD4/CD8, NK, T lymphocytes/mm3) by means of a Fluorescence Activate Cell Sorter ...(F.A.C.S. 420, Becton Dikinson). Twenty-eight psoriatic patients, never previously treated with PUVA, received UVA radiations (cabin Waldman 8001 K). Blood samples were taken before therapy and after 60 J/cm2 and 120 J/cm2 irradiations. Results were compared with those of our healthy control group of volunteers. A decrease of CD4 positive cells was observed in the psoriatic group before therapy. PUVA did not induce any statistically significant modification of the populations studied, except for a progressively increasing trend of CD4 positive cells. These data seem to stress that a medium-term PUVA therapy does not significantly modify the serum level of the T cell populations.
