A 63-year-old woman presented with an asymptomatic slowly growing lesion on the nose of 5 years duration. On cutaneous examination, the nose and adjacent left cheek showed a single, large, ill-defined, indurated annular plaque with distinct margin. Close examination of the edges of the plaque revealed thread like raised border. A biopsy from the edge of the plaque showed buds and irregular proliferations of tumor tissue attached to the undersurface of the epidermis and masses of epitheliometous basal cells in the dermis surrounded by clear-cut spaces and dermal fibrotic changes. The peripheral cell layer of the tumor formations showed palisading. These histologic features were consistent with basal cell carcinoma. We, herewith report this case of overlap of superficial spreading BCC with morphea-like basal cell carcinoma for its rarity and unique features.

Dexamethasone-cyclophoshamide pulse (DCP) therapy, designed by Pasricha and Gupta for pemphigus was first used in 1981 with the aim of reducing the toxicity of corticosteroids and also to achieve better therapeutic results. We have been using the same pulse therapy and herewith are presenting the results of pulse therapy in pemphigus were included in the study over a period of 6 years. They consisted of 51 cases of pemphigus vulgaris and 4 cases of pemphigus foliaceous. The male to female ration was 1.2:1. The age distribution showed a bimodal pattern with peaks at 21-30 years and 51-60 years. The body surface area involved at the time of initiation of DCP was less than 25% in 25, 25-50% in 19 and more than 50% in 11 cases. Oral cavity was involved in all cases of pemphigus vulgaris and eyes were affected in 4 patients. Twentysix cases were managed with DCP pulses only and were in remission in phase II and three of our patients in remission in phase III relapsed at 6 to 9 months. Interpulse steroids were required to induce remission in 11 patients. The remaining 18 patients did not proceed to phase II as they was either defaulting or had active disease. Only four cases progressed into phase IV and were declared cured. The various complications seen in our patients were candidiasis (n=5), hiccups (2), acneiform eruption (2), iatrogenic Cushing’s syndrome (1), herpes zoster (1), striae distensae (1), umbilical abscess (1), alopecia (1), azoospermia (1) pneumonia (1) and deep vein thrombosis (1). Two Patients on pulse therapy died of septicemia.

This study was undertaken to determine the pattern of dermatoses in children in south India. All children <14 years presenting to us between May 2001 and June 2002 were recruited. A total of 2100 children (males -995; females- 1105) with 2144 dermatoses were recorded. Infections and infestations were the most common dermatoses (54.5%) followed by dermatitis and eczema (8.6%), pigmentary disorders (5.7%), insect bite reaction (5.27%), hair and nail disorders (5.2%), miliaria (4.1%), nutritional deficiency disorders (2.8%), urticaria (2.5%), genetic disorders (2.1%), psoriasis (1.4%), collagen vascular disorders (0.5%), hemangiomas (0.5%), drug eruptions (0.3%), pityriasis rosea (0.2%) and others (5.8%). Pyodermas were the most common dermatoses (47.13%) followed by scabies (30.6%) amongst infections and infestations. Atopic dermatitis was noticed only in 3 patients. Insect bite reactions (papular urticaria) (5.27%) and miliaria (4.1%) were attributed to the tropical weather conditions in this coastal area. Genetic disorders including ichthyosis and palmoplantar keratoderma contributed to 2.1% of cases and could be due to the high incidence of consanguinous marriages in this society.

Pediatric DermatologyVolume 20, Issue 5 p. 453-454 Giant shagreen patch associated with spina bifida occulta in tuberous sclerosis Devinder Mohan Thappa M.D., D.H.A., M.N.A.M.S., Devinder Mohan Thappa M.D., D.H.A., M.N.A.M.S. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorB. Jeevankumar M.D., B. Jeevankumar M.D. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorKaliaperumal Karthikeyan M.D., Kaliaperumal Karthikeyan M.D. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorC. Udhayshankar M.B.B.S., C. Udhayshankar M.B.B.S. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorS. Jayanthi M.D., S. Jayanthi M.D. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this author Devinder Mohan Thappa M.D., D.H.A., M.N.A.M.S., Devinder Mohan Thappa M.D., D.H.A., M.N.A.M.S. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorB. Jeevankumar M.D., B. Jeevankumar M.D. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorKaliaperumal Karthikeyan M.D., Kaliaperumal Karthikeyan M.D. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorC. Udhayshankar M.B.B.S., C. Udhayshankar M.B.B.S. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorS. Jayanthi M.D., S. Jayanthi M.D. Pondicherry, IndiaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 October 2003 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1470.2003.20331.xCitations: 8 Letters to the Editor are welcomed for publication (subject to editing). Letters must be signed by all authors, typewritten double spaced, and must not exceed two pages of text including references. Two copies of all letters should be submitted along with one copy on disk. Letters should not duplicate material submitted or published in other journals. Prepublication proofs will not be provided. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume20, Issue5September 2003Pages 453-454 RelatedInformation

Inside prokaryotic cells, passive translational diffusion typically limits the rates with which cytoplasmic proteins can reach their locations. Diffusion is thus fundamental to most cellular processes, but the understanding of protein mobility in the highly crowded and non-homogeneous environment of a bacterial cell is still limited. Here we investigated the mobility of a large set of proteins in the cytoplasm of Escherichia coli, by employing fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) combined with simulations and theoretical modeling. We conclude that cytoplasmic protein mobility could be well described by Brownian diffusion in the confined geometry of the bacterial cell and at the high viscosity imposed by macromolecular crowding. We observed similar size dependence of protein diffusion for the majority of tested proteins, whether native or foreign to E. coli, and, for the faster-diffusing proteins, it is well consistent with the Stokes-Einstein relation once taking into account the specific dumbbell shape of protein fusions. Pronounced subdiffusion and hindered mobility are only observed for proteins with extensive interactions within the cytoplasm. Finally, while protein diffusion becomes markedly faster in actively growing cells, at high temperature, or upon treatment with rifampicin, and slower at high osmolarity, all of these perturbations affect proteins of different sizes in the same proportions, which could thus be described as changes of a well-defined cytoplasmic viscosity.

A 6 year old boy, born of second degree consanguineous parents, presented with mildly itchy blisters all over his body of 20 days’ duration. The skin lesions were present for 3–4 days and then ruptured spontaneously. Most of these lesions were healing spontaneously, but a ring of blisters was appearing again around the healed lesions. The child had no preceding history of drug intake and had achieved normal milestones and was vaccinated up to date. There was no family history of a similar disorder. The boy was healthy looking on physical examination, with numerous tense vesicles and bullae on a slightly erythematous skin with erosions and crusting found bilaterally, but asymmetrically on the face, especially in the perioral area (fig 1), neck, forearms, thighs (fig 2), groin, and gluteal region (around the anus and perigenital …

We report a 26 year old female patient of Kindler syndrome associated with squamous cell carcinoma of the leg. This syndrome is a rare inherited disorder characterized by trauma induced acral blistering, photosensitivity, poikiloderma and cutaneous atrophy. Occurrence of overt cutaneous malignancy on glabrous skin in this syndrome has not been reported before.