Corrigenda

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Experiences of rosacea and its treatment: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Summary

Rosacea is a skin disorder which causes flushing and redness of the face. Relatively few people with rosacea receive specialist dermatology treatment or psychological support. Despite this, individuals with rosacea can experience social anxiety, depression and embarrassment, and decreased quality of life. Whilst questionnaire based studies have been used to investigate the type of distress that people living with rosacea might experience, there are no studies that have sought to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of living with this visible skin condition. Therefore, this study used face-to-face interviews to learn about participants' complex, individual experience of life with rosacea. A qualitative approach called interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used to guide the interviews and analysis. This approach to research focuses on individual accounts and has been extensively used to investigate illness experience. In this study nine participants took part in detailed semi-structured interviews. Three overarching themes were gleamed from these interviews; self-consciousness, which focused on the fear of others assigning blame to participants for having caused their own symptoms; avoidance, concealment, and hiding emotions, referring to the coping strategies participants employed in response to rosacea; and inconsistencies in treatment, which focused on the need for medical professionals to assess the emotional wellbeing of patients with rosacea. The findings are consistent with qualitative findings from patients with other skin conditions that demonstrate that self-conscious emotions can be a significant part of the experience of life with a skin condition. Healthcare professionals need to take care to assess for the presence of such concerns in rosacea, and where unhelpful thoughts or beliefs are reported, patients may benefit from dermatology specific psychological support.

http://ift.tt/2Dx69Ak

Sustained Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, Dermatology Life Quality Index and EuroQol-5D response of biological treatment in psoriasis: 10 years of real-world data in the Swedish National Psoriasis Register

Summary

Patients with mild disease are usually treated with topical treatments, meaning applied to the skin, while patients with moderate to severe disease require systemic treatments (taken inside the body), which includes drugs called biologics. PsoReg is the Swedish national register established in 2006 to monitor the long term effectiveness and safety of biologics. PsoReg records patients' Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), which is a way of measuring how severe and widespread a patient's psoriasis is at a given time, allowing doctors to see if symptoms are worsending or improving. PsoReg also records patients' Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), which takes into account how the disease is affecting their daily activities and emotional wellbeing. This study used data from 583 patients to see how switching to a biologic treatment, having not previously taken biologics, impacts on their PASI and HRQoL. PASI and HRQoL values were analysed at 3–5 months, 6–11 months, and at least once more after a year or more, up to 9 years after switch to biological treatment. The data showed significant improvement in these scores 3–5 months after the switch, and this improvement lasted the whole observation period. The results from this study may support clinicians in starting and continuing biological treatment for patients with disappointing results with other types of treatment.

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What can we learn from psoriasis pharmacogenomics research?

Linked Article: van Vugt et al. Br J Dermatol 2018; 178:86–94.

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How breakthroughs in translational research have impacted treatment strategies for melanoma

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Can you get a tattoo while pregnant or breast-feeding?

In this article, learn about the risks of getting a tattoo while pregnant or breast-feeding. How can you identify and prevent an infection?

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Association of circulating resistin, leptin, adiponectin and visfatin levels with Behçet disease: a meta-analysis

Summary

Background

Behçet disease (BD) is a chronic inflammatory disease. Adipokines are synthesized in adipose tissue, and have been reported to play important roles in the pathogenesis of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including BD.

Aim

To evaluate the relationship between circulating blood adipokine levels and BD.

Methods

We conducted a meta-analysis of papers reporting on serum/plasma resistin, leptin, adiponectin and visfatin levels in patients with BD and in healthy controls (HCs). We identified 82 relevant studies using electronic and manual search methods, and selected 16 studies for full-text review based on the title and abstract. Two of these were later excluded (one was a review, one had no data), leaving 14 articles that met the inclusion criteria for this meta-analysis.

Results

The 14 included studies assessed 637 patients with BD and 520 HCs. Compared with the HCs, the BD group had significantly higher levels of leptin [standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.68, 95% CI 0.15–1.21, P = 0.01]. Levels of resistin (SMD = 0.51, 95% CI 0.92–0.918, P = 0.02) and adiponectin (SMD = 0.31, 95% CI 0.06–0.56, P = 0.02) were significantly higher in the BD group after adjustment for age, sex and body mass index (BMI), but not without such adjustment (resistin: (SMD = 0.38, 95% CI −0.18 to 0.93, P = 0.19; adiponectin: SMD = −0.59, 95% CI −2.23 to 1.06, P = 0.48). A significantly lower visfatin level was found in the BD group with adjustment (SMD = −1.70, 95% CI −2.14 to −1.25, P < 0.001) but not without adjustment (SMD = 0.31, 95% CI −0.21 to 0.82, P = 0.24).

Conclusions

Our meta-analysis revealed significantly higher circulating resistin, leptin and adiponectin levels and lower visfatin levels in patients with BD than in HCs, indicating that adipokines probably play an important role in BD pathogenesis.

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