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Biomedical subjects

F Rongioletti

Publications and source records attributed to F Rongioletti.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Clinical and laboratory presentation of lichen planus patients with chronic liver disease.

A recent case-control study on 577 lichen planus (LP) patients and 1008 controls confirmed that LP patients may significantly associate with a chronic liver disease (CLD) which is independent from drug or alcohol intake and has some connection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The study, however, failed to define the nature of CLD. This has been investigated through the clinical and laboratory features of 50 patients with LP and impaired liver function tests. Overall, the laboratory signs of cell necrosis prevailed over those of cholestasis and a good relationship with the HBV and HCV infections was found. Ninety percent of patients with LP and CLD had antibodies to one or another of the major viruses involved in infectious hepatitis. No patient had anti-liver kidney microsomal antibodies type 1. Liver biopsies were done in 12 cases and mostly revealed a chronic active hepatitis evolving into cirrhosis. No evident cases of primary biliary cirrhosis were found. It appears that LP associated CLD is post-viral in nature.

Hepacivirus

Counting the nucleolar organizer region-associated proteins is a prognostic clue of malignant melanoma.

BACKGROUND AND DESIGN: The nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) are chromosomal loops of DNA to which acidic proteins are associated that are seen by silver staining as black dots within the nucleoli (hereafter, these silver-staining NORs will be referred to as AgNORs). As their size and number reflect cell and nuclear activity, their counting in paraffin sections is regarded as a useful tool for diagnosing and prognosing malignant tumors. We counted AgNORs in 98 patients with stage I melanoma, followed up to an average of 73 months, to verify whether the number of AgNORs is of prognostic value. RESULTS: The number of AgNORs averaged 2.792 +/- 0.901 in the 64 patients without metastases and 4.889 +/- 1.403 in the 34 with metastases. In patients with counts higher than 3.62, there was an 82% probability of metastases developing. CONCLUSION: The technique is fast, simple, and reproducible with easily available reagents and standard light microscopy. In our population, AgNOR counts constituted a more accurate prognostic indicator than Clark's level and Breslow's thickness. Confirmation in a new population is needed.

Follow-Up Studies

Necrotizing eccrine squamous syringometaplasia presenting as acral erythema.

Acral erythema (AE) and eccrine squamous syringometaplasia (ESS) are distinctive clinico-pathological entities described in patients receiving chemotherapy for malignancies, mainly myelogenous leukemia. In no case of chemotherapy-induced AE have histopathologic changes of ESS been described. We report a patient with acute myelogenous leukemia who had typical AE due to cytarabine with histopathologic ESS. The latter findings in a case of AE may be a useful diagnostic clue for distinguishing chemotherapy-induced AE from palmo-plantar erythema of graft-vs-host reaction.

Adult

Seborrheic dermatitis and daylight.

Patients with mood depression have been found to have a higher prevalence of seborrheic dermatitis (SD), possibly related to their tendency to live indoors. The prevalence of outpatients with SD has now been found to be directly related to the number of gloomy days in the area. Since UV light might not be the only reason for the well-known improvement in SD in summer, an explanation possibly related to melatonin is envisaged.

Dermatitis, Seborrheic