Oral Alitretinoin for the Treatment of Recalcitrant Pityriasis Rubra Pilaris

Treatment of pityriasis rubra pilaris is still challenging. We here present a 74-year-old woman who had not experienced stable remission of her skin symptoms during prior treatments including topical and systemic corticosteroids, phototherapy, orally administered acitretin, cyclosporine, methotrexate and adalimumab. A therapy with oral alitretinoin was started and tolerated very well. After a few weeks, skin condition improved significantly and itching and scaling disappeared. The present case shows that alitretinoin might be an alternative in the treatment of recalcitrant pityriasis rubra pilaris type I. Further studies are needed to investigate the benefit of this encouraging result

Inhibition of lysyl oxidases synergizes with 5-azacytidine to restore erythropoiesis in myelodysplastic and myeloid malignancies

Limited response rates and frequent relapses during standard of care with hypomethylating agents in myelodysplastic neoplasms (MN) require urgent improvement of this treatment indication. Here, by combining 5-azacytidine (5-AZA) with the pan-lysyl oxidase inhibitor PXS-5505, we demonstrate superior restoration of erythroid differentiation in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) of MN patients in 20/31 cases (65%) versus 9/31 cases (29%) treated with 5-AZA alone. This effect requires direct contact of HSPCs with bone marrow stroma components and is dependent on integrin signaling. We further confirm these results in vivo using a bone marrow niche-dependent MN xenograft model in female NSG mice, in which we additionally demonstrate an enforced reduction of dominant clones as well as significant attenuation of disease expansion and normalization of spleen sizes. Overall, these results lay out a strong pre-clinical rationale for efficacy of combination treatment of 5-AZA with PXS-5505 especially for anemic MN

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

The impact of clinical nutrition on inflammatory skin diseases

The influence of nutrition on the pathophysiology and clinical severity of inflammatory facial dermatoses such as acne, rosacea, seborrheic dermatitis, and perioral dermatitis has been controversially discussed for years. As part of a modern treatment approach, clinicians should provide patients with information on how their choice of diet might impact their dermatologic diagnosis and could potentially enhance therapeutic outcome. Recently, the concept of a gut-skin axis has gained momentum in the understanding of inflammatory dermatoses, with nutrition considered a contributing factor in this context. For example, gastrointestinal symptoms in rosacea patients may indicate a dysbiosis of the gut microbiome, treatment of which may also improve severity of the skin disease. New research efforts were recently made for acne patients addressing the clinical effects of omega-3 fatty acids and probiotics. In contrast, due to the limited data available, no comparable specific dietary recommendations can yet be made for seborrheic or perioral dermatitis. However, there are promising signs that clinical nutrition and dermatology will be more extensively interlinked in the future, both clinically and scientifically