Vitiligo: A new side effect of everolimus therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) have always had a poor prognosis. Recently new targeted drugs were developed. A 73-year-old female patient affected from mRCC was assessed at our Department. She underwent before a multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy, but she developed progressive liver metastases so she was treated after with everolimus, an allosteric inhibitor of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), but started developing depigmented lesions over the neck. Vitiligo is a common cutaneous disorder and drug-induced vitiligo is reported. Our case can suggest a new type of drug-induced vitiligo, caused by a melanocyte-specific mechanism of toxicity

Human Microbiome: Composition and Role in Inflammatory Skin Diseases

This review focuses on recent evidences about human microbiome composition and functions, exploring the potential implication of its impairment in some diffuse and invalidating inflammatory skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa and acne. We analysed current scientific literature, focusing on the current evidences about gut and skin microbiome composition and the complex dialogue between microbes and the host. Finally, we examined the consequences of this dialogue for health and skin diseases. This review highlights how human microbes interact with different anatomic niches modifying the state of immune activation, skin barrier status, microbe-host and microbe-microbe interactions. It also shows as most of the factors affecting gut and skin microorganisms' activity have demonstrated to be effective also in modulating chronic inflammatory skin diseases. More and more evidences demonstrate that human microbiome plays a key role in human health and diseases. It is to be expected that these new insights will translate into diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive measures in the context of personalized/precision medicine

A Measurement Software for Professional Training in Early Detection of Melanoma

Software systems have been long introduced as support to the early detection of melanoma through the automatic analysis of suspicious skin lesions. Nevertheless, their behavior is not yet similar to the performance exhibited by expert dermatologists in terms of diagnostic accuracy. Instead, a software system should be adopted by non-experienced dermatologists in order to improve the measurement and detection results for skin atypical patterns and the accuracy of the corresponding second opinion. This paper describes an image-based measurement and classification system able to score pigmented skin lesions according to the Seven-Point Check-list diagnostic method. Focus is devoted to the measurement procedure of biological structures more closely related to the atypical character of the nevus. Moreover, the performances of the measurement system are evaluated by considering the support to dermatologists with different experiences during the clinical activity

Human Microbiome: Composition and Role in Inflammatory Skin Diseases

This review focuses on recent evidences about human microbiome composition and functions, exploring the potential implication of its impairment in some diffuse and invalidating inflammatory skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa and acne. We analysed current scientific literature, focusing on the current evidences about gut and skin microbiome composition and the complex dialogue between microbes and the host. Finally, we examined the consequences of this dialogue for health and skin diseases. This review highlights how human microbes interact with different anatomic niches modifying the state of immune activation, skin barrier status, microbe-host and microbe-microbe interactions. It also shows as most of the factors affecting gut and skin microorganisms' activity have demonstrated to be effective also in modulating chronic inflammatory skin diseases. More and more evidences demonstrate that human microbiome plays a key role in human health and diseases. It is to be expected that these new insights will translate into diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive measures in the context of personalized/precision medicine