Profile of vismodegib and its potential in the treatment of advanced basal cell carcinoma.

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common human malignancy. Recent advances in our understanding of the critical biologic pathways implicated in the development and progression of BCC have led to the development of the first molecular targeted therapy for this disease. The hedgehog pathway is mutated in virtually all patients with BCC and recent trials with vismodegib, an inhibitor of this pathway, have shown significant responses. This review will discuss the importance of the hedgehog pathway in the pathogenesis of BCC and describe in detail the pharmacology of vismodegib in relation to its activity in advanced BCC

A survey of animal neoplasms

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1959 S3

A Case Report of Dermatographia

The authors present a case of symptomatic dermatographia. Dermatographia is an inducible urticaria where the light pressure of scratching leaves a raised wheal in the pattern of the scratching. The presentation can be striking and is often very stressful for the patient; however, the etiology is benign and the key takeaway is to provide reassurance to the patient

Sweet syndrome: a sweet disease with a bitter diagnosis

Sweet syndrome is an acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis first described by Robert Douglas Sweet in 1964. Sweet syndrome presents in three clinical settings: classical (or idiopathic), malignancy-associated, and drug-induced. It has been associated with hematopoietic malignancies and myelodysplastic disorders. A-28-years married woman presented to us with chief complaints of Fever and Multiple swellings over the body since 2 months. At presentation she has Pallor; venous hum present. Multiple, tender, erythematous subcutaneous swellings, firm in consistency noted in both forearms. Skin over the swellings is pinchable; superficial skin is normal. Sweet syndrome can occasionally cause an intense systemic response involving the lungs, liver and musculoskeletal system. The skin lesions in Sweet syndrome typically start as erythematous papules, plaques, and nodules. The lesions can take on pseudovesicular or pseudopustular appearance, and sometimes fully formed vesicles or pustules develop. The lesions can be subcutaneous mimicking erythema nodosum which can’t be differentiated unless a biopsy is taken. Because the diagnosis of Sweet syndrome can be challenging, particularly when associated with other connective tissue disorders such as SLE, a set of diagnostic criteria were proposed initially by Su and Liu and then revised by Von den Driesch. The diagnosis is based upon the presence of two major and two of the four minor criteria. Concurrent Sweet syndrome and SLE are exceedingly rare. Twelve patients with both Sweet syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been previously reported. We report a case of sweet syndrome associated with SLE diagnosed in our hospital. In our patient, diagnostic criteria are satisfied for Sweet syndrome as well as for SLE (ACR criteria-patient had polyarthralgia, anemia, thrombocytopenia, ANA and Ds DNA positive. Four out of 11 are fulfilled for SLE). Patient responded to corticosteroids

Testing morphodynamic controls on the location and frequency of river avulsions on fans versus deltas: Huanghe (Yellow River), China

A mechanistic understanding of river avulsion location and frequency is needed to predict the growth of alluvial fans and deltas. The Huanghe, China, provides a rare opportunity to test emerging theories because its high sediment load produces regular avulsions at two distinct nodes. Where the river debouches from the Loess plateau, avulsions occur at an abrupt decrease in bed slope and reoccur at a time interval (607 yrs) consistent with a channel-filling timescale set by the superelevation height of the levees. Downstream, natural deltaic avulsions reoccur at a timescale that is fast (7 yrs) compared to channel-filling timescale due to large stage-height variability during floods. Unlike the upstream node, deltaic avulsions cluster at a location influenced by backwater hydrodynamics and show evidence for episodic downstream migration in concert with progradation of the shoreline, providing new expectations for the interplay between avulsion location, frequency, shoreline rugosity and delta morphology

Mismatched decoding revisited: general alphabets, channels with memory, and the wide-band limit

The mismatch capacity of a channel is the highest rate at which reliable communication is possible over the channel with a given (possibly suboptimal) decoding rule. This quantity has been studied extensively for single-letter decoding rules over discrete memoryless channels (DMCs). Here we extend the study to memoryless channels with general alphabets and to channels with memory with possibly non-single-letter decoding rules. We also study the wide-band limit, and, in particular, the mismatch capacity per unit cost, and the achievable rates on an additive-noise spread-spectrum system with single-letter decoding and binary signaling

Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Calotropis gigantea and Tridax procumbens on Carrageenin-Induced Paw Edema in Rats

The anti-inflammatory activities of extract of Calotropis gigantea R.Br. and Tridax procumbens Linn., were assessed on carrageenin-induced paw edema along with standard drug, Ibuprofen. The Ibuprofen significantly reduced paw edema at the dose of 200mg/Kg bw orally. The oral administration equi-effective dose (ED50) of C. gigantea (600mg/Kg bw) and T. procumbens (400 mg/Kg bw) individually revealed about 20-35% more activity than the one rendered by administration of 50mg/Kg bw of Ibuprofen. The effect of C. gigantea and T. procumbens along with various dose regimen of Ibuprofen showed greater anti-inflammatory activities than the Ibuprofen alone