Selected Aspects of the Living Situation of Persons Suffering from Syphilis – Poznan Study

In the last years, a considerable increase in syphilis incidencewas observed in Poland. This is a condition with serious health and psychosocialconsequences. The research demonstrates that one of the eventswhich significantly modify the course of human life is the somatic diseaseexperience; hence, it was decided to examine selected aspects of the livingsituation of persons suffering from syphilis, which refer to the socialposition held by these persons. Materials for the research were collectedbased on the anonymous authors’ survey composed of 16 questions. Theresearch lasted for two years and covered a group of 42 syphilitic patients(35 males and 7 females). The mean age of male patients was 35.7 and offemale patients 37.0 years. Among the participants, 8 persons had beensubjected to treatment for a few years, 11 for about a year, and 22 personshad recently become ill. Patients assessed the attitude toward themselvesmostly as invariable, followed by unstable; 45.2% of subjects consideredtheir position in the family as average and 42.9% as high; 28.6% of patientsassessed their occupational position as average and the same numberadmitted to be currently out of work. Most frequently, unemployed werepatients who had been affected by the disease for several years (62.5%),whereas their social position was assessed either as high (47.6%) or average(45.2%). Irrespective of the duration of the disease, patients (duringhospitalization) usually met a lot of people. It has been proven that mostof the syphilitic patients do not have negative attitude toward themselvesand do not assess their social position as inferior, regardless of the durationof the disease. Such a picture of the living situation may be a manifestationof the compensation for the negative mental state, activation ofother defense mechanisms or proper strategy of coping with the stressor.The generally optimistic image of the studied group of syphilitic patientsmay constitute a warning against an increased risk from the infectedpersons

Quality of Life and Optimism in Patients with Morphea

Despite extensive knowledge about quality of life of people suffering from dermatological diseases, data on patients with morphea are scarce. The aim of our study was to compare the quality of life of healthy controls and morphea patients, as well as to determine the correlation of this variable with the level of dispositional optimism. The study included 47 patients with morphea and 47 healthy controls, matched for gender and age. Cantril’s Ladder and Life Orientation Test-Revised were used to assess the levels of life satisfaction and dispositional optimism, respectively. LoSSI was used for the objective assessment. The anticipated level of life quality and the level of dispositional optimism were statistically significantly lower in morphea patients (p = 0.032 and p = 0.014, respectively) when compared to controls. There were no differences in the assessment of current (p = 0.168) and past (p = 0.318) levels of life quality. Also, we proved that type of morphea did not differentiate the current (p = 0.175), past (p = 0.620) and future (p = 0.356) assessment of the quality of life. In the group of morphea patients there was a statistically significant correlation between the level of dispositional optimism and current (p = 0.002, r = 0.43), as well as anticipated (p < 0.001, r = 0.57) levels of life quality. Current level of life quality of healthy controls and morphea patients is comparable, whereas the latter anticipate their future life situation to be significantly worse than the former. Higher level of life satisfaction correlates with higher level of optimism

Human endogenous retroviruses and chosen disease parameters in morphea

Introduction: Morphea (localized scleroderma) is a relatively rare disease characterized by excessive skin fibrosis. Human endogenous retroviruses (HERV) are largely distributed within the human genome with hundreds of thousands of elements. The HERV have been widely studied in autoimmune disorders, yet hardly ever assessed in diseases with a good prognosis such as morphea. Aim: In this study we focus on the possible relations between the expression of chosen HERV and factors influencing the pathomechanism of the disease, such as age, sex, titres of anti-nuclear antibodies, as well as duration, activity, and severity of the disease (LoSSI index). Material and methods: Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting six HERV sequences of interest were performed on samples derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and skin biopsies. Results: In PBMC we found a statistically significant negative correlation between HERV-W env expression and LoSSI index (p = 0.01). Additionally, HERV-W env was downregulated in patients with the active form of morphea. In all other cases we found no correlation whatsoever nor statistically significant differences below the p = 0.05 threshold. Conclusions : Morphea seems to be an autoimmune disease where the impact of HERV is not so apparent. It seems that probing many patients for the expression of just a few sequences is not as effective as previously expected. For initial studies of HERV in other diseases we recommend high throughput techniques such as HERV-dedicated DNA microarrays or massive parallel sequencing