In the last 3 years nine patients with perioral dermatitis and sixteen patients with rosacea-like dermatitis have been seen at the Dermatological Clinic of Kyushu University Hospital. All patients were females with ages ranging from 18 to 61 (mean 45) and had used fluorinated steroids cream for 3 months to 10 years (mean 3 years). Perioral dermatitis seems to be a distinct entity and not a variant of rosacea-like dermatitis (steroid rosacea). All but 3 patients were greatly improved by the withdrawal of topical fluorinated steroid cream and by the tetracycline therapy for 2-3 months, although redness and atrophy lasted for 6 months to one year afterwards.

View full abstract

Six patients on treatment for hypertension and/or arteriosclerosis developed lichen planus-like drug eruption. The age of the patients varied from 49 to 77. Of these, 5 patients receiving cinnarizine presented eruption characterized by 1) widespread and symmetrically distributed erythematosquamous plaques and papules with marked exudative tendency, 2) diffuse, finely scaling erythema on the face, especially the ears and forehead, 3) involvement of oral mucous membrane and 4) histological finding of lichen planus with infiltration of eosinophils and marked papillay edema. The discontinuance of cinnarizine was followed by rapid disappearance of the lesions in all 5 cases and the drug was considered to be a causative agent. The possible etiologic involvement of biochemical and cumulative action of the drug was suspected. One patient who was being administered both cinnarizine and pyrithioxine hydrochloride developed eruption on the exposed areas and in this case photoallergy seemed to play a role.

View full abstract

A 12-year-old girl developed calcifying epithelioma with an unusual clinical feature on the left scapular region. Clinically it was elevated over the skin surface, walnut-sized, soft, pseudocystic and translucent. A hard and rough surfaced nodule was palpable in the pseudocyst. The histological examination showed that the pseudocystic cavity was formed in the upper dermis above a typical tumor mass of calcifying epithelioma.

View full abstract

A 70-year-old man with typical acquired digital fibrokeratoma (Bart) on the ring finger of his left hand was reported. The tumor was a smooth, firm, normal colored, finger-like projection, 12 mm in height and 7 mm in diameter at its slightly constricted base. It arose out of a collarette of elevated skin. Histologically, the cores of the tumor was formed by thick bundles of collagen which was interwoven, predominantly oriented in the direction of the vertical axis of the lesion and covered with markedly hyperkeratotic and acanthotic epidermis.

View full abstract

A 44-year-old man visited, complaining of typical, classical type of erythrasma of the bilateral crutofemoral area. He suffered from diabetes mellitus since several years ago. The coral red fluorescence by Wood's light and numerous bacilli in the scale established the diagnosis. We prescribed a commercially available deodorant and antiperspirant spray “Ban”^® (Bristol Meyers Co.) of which active ingredient is isopropylmethylphenol. Six days after the onsent of the treatment, scale of the legion and bacilli in the scale diminished almost completely.

View full abstract

Three cases of so-called non-venereal sclerosing lymphangitis of the penis were reported with some considerations on its nomenclature and relationship to Mondor's disease. They had no history of trauma of the genital region and of venereal disease. On enquiry of their sexual habits there was no abnormality. Underneath the skin a firm cartilage-like cord encircled the coronal sulcus. The worm-like lesion could be seen easily on stretching the penile shaft. The lesion itself was not tender and was not fixed to the skin or to the deeper tissue. No other cutaneous or mucosal lesion was observed. The biopsied specimens showed marked thickening of the vessel and the thrombus-like structure in the process of organization. The cellular in-filtrates in and around the vessel were sparse. These affected vessels were considered lymphatics light-and-electronmicroscopically.

View full abstract

A case of male, aged 25, who had suffered from lupus miliaris disseminatus of face and lupus vulgaris in the head concomitantly is reported.

View full abstract

A 3-year-old girl fell into boiling water in a bathtub and received 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 94% of the body surface in December, 1973. Emergency and early treatment was done at the Intensive Care Unit. Bathing, topical gentamicin treatment and homografitng from related and unrelated donors appeared effective for the healing of burn ulcers. Various complications occurred, headed by Pseudomonas infection over the wounds. Autografting was performed 12 times, enlarging areas of epithelization little by little. She left our Hospital on foot after 8 months of hospitalization, though there were still contractures over her joints.

View full abstract

Clinical and immunological studies of four patients with chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (CMCC) are reported. Agglutinating antibodies againt Candida albicans of four CMCC cases were found to be extremely higher than those of normal controls and localized superficial candidiasis patients. On the other hand, delayed hypersensitivity reactions to the Candida antigen and also to PPD were impaired and lymphocytes responded poorly to the homotransplant in the cases of CMCC, while these cell-mediated responses were normal in the controls and localized superficial candidiasis patients. The immune deviation phenomenon would be one possible explanation for the dissociation of cellular and humoral immune response in CMCC. Therefore, the author studied the mechanism of immune deviation phenomenon, in which selective alteration of immune response to C. albicans was caused by prior administration of that antigen. When mice of SL strain were sensitized with heat-killed C. albicans in incomplete Freund's adjuvant (IFA) or in complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) and were challenged with live Candida cells 10 days after the immunization, mice sensitized with heat-killed C. albicans in IFA died by the infection earlier than the control, while those sensitized with heat-killed C. albicans in CFA showed protective immunity. This result would be a supporting evidence that preformed humoral immunity would interfere with the establishment of cell-mediated protective immunity in Candida infection of mice. This is a preliminary report to propose a hypothesis that immune deviation-like phenomenon would be a basis for the dissociation of humoral and cell-mediated immune response in the CMCC patients with immunological spectral forms.

View full abstract

Trichophyton mentagrophytes was cultured on Sabouraud's agar for 7-10 days at 37°C. Specimens were fixed in glutaraldehyde or acrolein-glutaraldehyde. These were processed for freeze-etching study. The surface of the cell showed the fine rodlet pattern. The plasmalemma was smooth. Typical invagination of the plasmalemma was not found. Septal bodies, nucleus, and mitochondria were clearly presented.

View full abstract

A study was made of the relation between the skin and the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical system. The results are as follows :In adrenalectomized rats were observed the reduced capillary resistance (CR) of the skin, prolonged restoring time (RT) in cold burden test and accentuated TTC intracutaneous reaction (TRI). While the hypophysectomized were noted with the increase in CR, lightbrowning, drying and roughening of the skin surface. Hypothalamic destruction in rabbits was found to associate with the reduced CR, prolonged RT and increased TRI, which were accompanied by nonspecific erythema and auricular defect. Rabbits, when kept isolated, showed a reduced CR a prolonged RT with hair falling and dermatitis of the neck and limbs. But as the animals adapted themselves to the circumstances, their skin function returned to normal, with simul-taneous disappearance of dermatitis. Rats with isolation stress gave rise to alopecia areatalike lesions in a few cases.

View full abstract

1) The distribution of topically applied radioactive clobetasol 17-propionate was studied by means of autoradiography (direct mounting method).
2) In time course study, the developed silver grain deposition on the epidermis and skin appendages appeared after 30 minutes of occlusive treatment, and then it became in maximum state after 5 hours.
3) Reservoir phenomenon was noticed 24 hours after removal of the cream.
4) The pattern of deposition on the epithelial component of the skin is similar to that of betamethasone 17-valerate.
5) After 1 hour of simple application of the cream, the deposition was only seen on the horny layer in vitro experiment, whereas some deposition was noticed on the Malpighian layer of the epidermis and hair follicle in in vivo experiment.

View full abstract

The abundant keratohyalin granules were generated in the several layers of stratum granulosum of cow hoof epidermis, but scanty or none in cow snout epidermis (T. Tezuka, Tohoku J. exp. Med. 116: 45-52, 1975). The water holding capacity of the horny cell layers might be changed between cow snout and cow hoof epidermis, as the number of keratohyalin granules were so different between them. Cow snout and cow hoof skins were cut into 1cm² pieces and 30 μm (cow snout) and 100 μm (cow hoof) sections were made with a cryostat, following immersion into the solution of various concentration of urea. The more concentrated was urea in the solution, the more water was held in the horny sheets. The amount of the held water in the horny layers of cow snout epidermis was three times more than that of cow hoof epidermis when it was compared with per 100 mg of dry weight of horny sheets. However, the amount of water which was held in horny sheets sheets was exactly paralel to the amount of urea which was penetrated into the horny layers. Fibrous and matrix components of cow snout and cow hoof horny sheets were extracted and the amounts of those components were compared with per protein content of the residual, DOC and alkaline urea insoluble material, which was used as a indicator of the number of horny cells, as the major component of these residual material was the thickend cellular envelope of horny cells. The amounts of both components in cow snout horny layers were lower than those in cowhoof. The difference of permeability against urea between cow snout and cow hoof horny sheets might lie in the different amount of fibrous and matrix substances in a horny cell.

View full abstract

Following results were obtained by clinical and statistical analyses of the patients of contact dermatitis observed at the dermatological department of Yamaguchi University Hospital for 10 years from 1964 to 1973. 1) The outpatients observed in this period were 29, 440 in number and comprised 2, 394 cases of contact dermatitis (8.1%); 2) The incidence rate of contact dermatitis at the age decade increased in number rapidly in the second decade and remained on nearly the same level till the sixth decade. Then followed a trend of gradual decrease with increasing of age after the seventh decade. 3) Suspected contactants for the contact dermatitis of 648 patients were found to be cosmetics, drugs, plants and insects, rubber, clothes and ornaments, and soaps and cleansers. 4) by patch testing, 67.1% of 82 cases suspected of contact dermatitis due to cosmetics were proved positive for cosmetics, and basic cosmetics were found positive more frequently than makeup cosmetics; 5) of drug suspected of the contactant, topical drugs for the eczema, sterilization chemicals and disinfectants, antimycotics, and eyewashes were found to become the causative agent for contact dermatitis frequently in the order of decreasing frequency.

View full abstract