In Vivo Mobilization of Polymorphonuclear Leukocytes in Psoriasis: Relationship to Clinical Parameters and Serum Inhibitory Factors

Mean migration of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNL) toward autologous and homologous control sera, evaluated by quantitative skin window chamber technique, was only slightly reduced in 60 patients with psoriasis as compared to 27 normal controls (p < 0.1). A significant decrease in cell migration was found (1) in patients with actively spreading lesions, (2) in patients with extensive lesions involving more than 40–60% of the skin surface, (3) in the first 2 months of relapse, and (4) 5–6 mouths after onset of new lesions. However, PMNL migration was increased when psoriatic lesions lasted 3–4 months. Seventy-one percent of psoriatic sera exerted a suppressive effect on the psoriatic and normal PMNL migration. The inhibitors were found predominantly in patients with stationary and long-standing lesions, Some of the psoriatic sera had a stimulatory effect on the chemotaxis of psoriatic PMNL. These sera originated from those patients with active spreading lesions in the first 2 months of relapse. These data indicate that neutrophil migration is abnormal in the course of psoriasis and that it could be modified by different proportions of both inhibitors and stimulators of chemotaxis

The Ultrastructural Localization of IgA Deposits in Chronic Bullous Disease of Childhood (CBDC)

A case of bullous disease in a child with linear IgA immune deposits at the basement membrane zone and with some clinical, histological, and electron microscopic characteristics both of dermatitis herpetiformis and bullous pemphigoid, is described.The bulla formed between the basal lamina and basal cell membranes as in bullous pemphigoid, but at the same time there were numerous inflammatory cells in the dermis just below the partly destroyed basal lamina and also abundant fibrin deposits in very recent bulla and in the skin, all of which is rather characteristic of dermatitis herpetiformis.Ultrastructurally, the IgA deposits were located chiefly below the lamina basalis (the dermal type) but also, though less abundantly, in the lamina lucida, very much as we have seen them to be in adult cases with linear IgA immune deposits at the basement membrane zone. The investigations have supplied further evidence showing the chronic bulbous disease of childhood to be actually a counterpart of the form in adults with the same linear localization of IgA deposits