EuroGuiDerm Guideline on the systemic treatment of Psoriasis vulgaris – Part 1: treatment and monitoring recommendations

This evidence- and consensus-based guideline on the treatment of psoriasis vulgaris was developed following the EuroGuiDerm Guideline and Consensus Statement Development Manual. The first part of the guideline includes general information on the scope and purpose, health questions covered, target users and strength/limitations of the guideline. Suggestions for disease severity grading and treatment goals are provided. It presents the general treatment recommendations as well as detailed management and monitoring recommendations for the individual drugs. The treatment options discussed in this guideline are as follows: acitretin, ciclosporin, fumarates, methotrexate, adalimumab, apremilast, brodalumab, certolizumab pegol, etanercept, guselkumab, infliximab, ixekizumab, risankizumab, secukinumab, tildrakizumab and ustekinumab.     

Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Stomach Cancer among Male Adults: A Case-Control Study in Northern Viet Nam

Objective: This study investigated the association between fruit and vegetable intake and stomach cancer, with considering the impacts of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and tobacco smoking. Methods: A case-control study featuring 80 male incident stomach-cancer cases and 126 male controls was conducted in a general hospital in Viet Nam. A semi-quantitative food frequency and demographic lifestyle questionnaire were used; and venous blood samples were collected to determine H. pylori status by IgG ELISA. The respective associations between fruit and vegetable intake and stomach cancer were examined using unconditional logistic regression analysis with adjustments for possible cofactors. Results: Fruit intake and stomach cancer showed a weak inverse association when this became non-significant after adjusting for H. pylori infection (OR = 0.50, 95%CI: 0.22–1.12, p trend = 0.094). Stratifying by H. pylori status returned a negative trend for fruit intake and stomach cancer among H. pylori-negative participants (OR = 0.21, 95%CI: 0.06–0.69, p trend = 0.010), but no significant interaction for H. pylori-positive participants (OR = 0.76, 95%CI: 0.21–2.68, p trend = 0.670). Vegetable intake and stomach cancer showed no association, regardless of H. pylori status. Compared to ever-smokers with low intake, never-smokers with high vegetable (OR = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.06–0.95) and fruit intake (OR = 0.20, 95%CI: 0.06–0.65) showed the lowest odds of stomach cancer. Conclusions: Fruit, but not vegetable, intake showed a weak inverse association with stomach cancer. H. pylori infection and tobacco-smoking status may influence the protective effects of fruit and vegetable intake on stomach cancer.     

Critical study of hair growth analysis with computer-assisted methods

BACKGROUND: Computer-assisted image analysis has been proposed for human hair growth studies. METHODS: The performances of Trichoscan, a commercially available automated system combining epiluminiscence microscopy with digital image analysis, developed for office-based hair growth measurements, have been evaluated comparatively on the same skin sites using standardized photographic equipment and calibrated processing for contrast-enhanced phototrichogram (CE-PTG) analysis. This reference method has been validated with scalp biopsies and histological examination of serial sectioning. RESULTS: Besides edge effects, hair fibres escaped the Trichoscan analysis for various reasons including, but not limited to, thickness, pigmentation, closeness and crossing. CONCLUSION: Most of these problems have been identified in the late 1980s and remain largely unsolved by the processing software that was evaluated in 2004. Therefore claims promoting the Trichoscan method for accurate hair measurements in clinical trials on scalp and body hair are not supported by the present investigation. The speed at which the analysis is performed is outweighed by the errors in signal detection. Therefore we suggest that improvements must be clearly documented before Trichoscan is established for quantified diagnostic purposes and detailed hair cycle monitoring during hair trials.     

Construction and evaluation of multitracer small-animal PET probabilistic atlases for voxel-based functional mapping of the rat brain.

Automated voxel-based or predefined volume-of-interest (VOI) analysis of rodent small-animal PET data is necessary for optimal use of information because the number of available resolution elements is limited. We have mapped metabolic ((18)F-FDG), dopamine transporter (DAT) (2'-(18)F-fluoroethyl(1R-2-exo-3-exe)-8-methyl-3-(4-chlorophenyl)-8-azabicyclo[3.2.1]-octane-2-carboxylate [(18)F-FECT]), and dopaminergic D(2) receptor ((11)C-raclopride) small-animal PET data onto a 3-dimensional T2-weighted MRI rat brain template oriented according to the rat brain Paxinos atlas. In this way, ligand-specific templates for sensitive analysis and accurate anatomic localization were created. Registration accuracy and test-retest and intersubject variability were investigated. Also, the feasibility of individual rat brain statistical parametric mapping (SPM) was explored for (18)F-FDG and DAT imaging of a 6-hydroxydopamine (6OHDA) model of Parkinson's disease. METHODS: Ten adult Wistar rats were scanned repetitively with multitracer small-animal PET. Registrations and affine spatial normalizations were performed using SPM2. On the MRI template, a VOI map representing the major brain structures was defined according to the stereotactic atlas of Paxinos. (18)F-FDG data were count normalized to the whole-brain uptake, whereas parametric DAT and D(2) binding index images were constructed by reference to the cerebellum. Registration accuracy was determined using random simulated misalignments and vectorial mismatching. RESULTS: Registration accuracy was between 0.24 and 0.86 mm. For (18)F-FDG uptake, intersubject variation ranged from 1.7% to 6.4%. For (11)C-raclopride and (18)F-FECT data, these values were 11.0% and 5.3%, respectively, for the caudate-putamen. Regional test-retest variability of metabolic normalized data ranged from 0.6% to 6.1%, whereas the test-retest variability of the caudate-putamen was 14.0% for (11)C-raclopride and 7.7% for (18)F-FECT. SPM analysis of 3 individual 6OHDA rats showed severe hypometabolism in the ipsilateral sensorimotor cortex (P 相似文献