Moisturizers: Are you a ‘body shop’ person or a ‘Nivea’ person? How about E45/ Clinique/ Dove etc? Which is the best moisturiser? Is simple vaseline as good as an expensive Clinique moisturising cream? These are questions that friends, relatives and patient’s pose on a regular basis. Unfortunately, no body likes the answer I give […]
This study confirms the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, showing that it can even influence autoantibody titres. Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial drug but is an excellent treatment option for cutaneous lupus. J Rheumatol. 2012 Aug 1. [Epub ahead of print] Hydroxychloroquine Use Is Associated with Lower Odds of Persistently Positive Antiphospholipid Antibodies and/or Lupus […]
The diagnosis of melanoma’s is one of the most controversial issues in dermatopathology. This paper addresses one of the very important issue of mitotic rate in melanoma’s. Existing guidelines attach a lot of importance to the presence of one mitosis in a melanoma. This study discusses the fallacy of such an approach and the […]
Interesting article that discusses the role of Alternative/ complementary medicine in dermatology. Just confirms what we as dermatologists always knew, that there is no scientific evidence to support the role of these treatment modalities. Moreover, caution has to exercised when using these treatments, as they can often cause severe side effects. American Journal […]
Psoriasis treatment (adalumimab) can cause skin cancer: There is a craze for ‘new’ treatments in psoriasis and over the last decade a class of drugs called biologicals have become extremely popular for the treatment of psoriaisis, each drug costing 8-10K GBP/ year/ patient. So are they any good and more importantly are they safe? This […]
Interesting research paper that suggests that light treatment (phototherapy), has no significant effect on autoantibody levels and does not induce photosensitive diseases like lupus. I remember one of my senior dermatologist colleagues being quite worried about administering phototherapy to patients with positive ANA antibodies of 1:640 (what is considered normal for approx 5% of the […]
This is the extent to which people go to try and reverse the natural aging process. Did you know that ‘Mesotherapy’, commonly known as “biorejuvenation” or “biorevitalization”, is a technique used to rejuvenate the skin by means of a injection of a multivitamin solution and natural plant extracts, under the skin. I can’t think of […]
Did you know that Marie Antoinette’s hair apparently turned grey overnight after hearing news of her death sentence? Whether this is a myth or a true story, the following case report of sudden whitening/ greying of hair, is a true story. The authors report a 82-year old woman who over the course of a few […]
Most women nowadays are obsessed with using various toxic cosmetic chemicals on their face. But do you know that facial scrubs and cosmetics can cause acne? Below is a case report of three young ladies who developed exactly the same. I often get asked ‘What is the best make up product?’, ‘what is the […]
Well if you haven’t had enough reason to stop smoking yet, this recent paper suggests a relationship between smoking and poor treatment response of patients with cutaneous lupus. It is not known whether smoking directly decreases the efficacy of hydroxycloroquine or whether smokers tend not to improve so well as they tend to be outdoors […]