Influence of COVID-19 confinement on the size of malignant skin tumours surgically removed at a Spanish hospital.

The COVID-19 pandemic required people to confine themselves to their homes where possible, and disrupted normal hospital activities. We examine whether this lockdown generated changes in the size of the tumours. We compared the dimensions of the surgically removed malignant skin tumours from the first 150 patients treated after the confinement ended in Spain (22 May 2020) with those of the last 150 patients to receive such treatment before the confinement began (13 March 2020). Data on tumour surface area were collected from pathology reports. Overall, no significant difference was seen in the tumour sizes. However, among men, the tumours removed after confinement were significantly larger (P < 0.05). Controversy exists over how the reduction in the number of tumours diagnosed during lockdowns might have influenced the characteristics of tumours. In this study, no overall difference was seen in the size of the tumours removed, although those removed from men after confinement were larger.

Effectiveness of omalizumab in a case of urticarial vasculitis.

Urticarial vasculitis (UV) is a mainly leucocytoclastic vasculitis with urticarial plaques. Treating these patients is challenging as the available treatments have poor efficacy. Oral corticosteroids are considered the first-line treatment, but H1 antihistamines, dapsone, colchicine, antimalarials, ciclosporin and antileucotrienes have all been tried also. However, because of their adverse effects and/or lack of efficacy, new agents are still needed. Omalizumab, an anti-IgE antibody, shows efficacy in chronic spontaneous urticaria, and might also be a good treatment for angio-oedema and urticarial vasculitis. To our knowledge, there have been only seven relevant case reports published in the English literature. We add a new case of severe chronic recurrent urticarial vasculitis refractory to all of the drugs mentioned above. We started the patient on subcutaneous omalizumab 300 mg every 4 weeks, which produced clinical improvement within the first month and total remission in the fifth month. The patient has remained stable for 23 months, and follow-up is ongoing.

Refractory pyoderma gangrenosum treated with infliximab in an infant.

We report the case of an 11-month-old boy with severe recalcitrant pyoderma gangrenosum refractory to prednisone, dapsone and ciclosporin. Treatment with infliximab was well tolerated, and resulted in an excellent clinical response that has been sustained for 15 months. The characteristics of this condition in children and the use of infliximab in infants are both reviewed.

[Cross-cultural adaptation and Spanish validation of Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire in dermatology (PSQ-18)]. / Validación y adaptación transcultural del cuestionario de satisfacción en Dermatología (PSQ-18).

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Patient satisfaction has become one of the most important outcome measures of quality of care. This study aimed to present the translation, cultural adaptation and validation of a Spanish version of the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-18) in a sample of Spanish dermatology patients. METHODS: Cross-cultural linguistic adaptation and translation-backtranslation processes were performed following accepted international guidelines. The psychometric properties, reliability and construct validity were evaluated with Cronbach's alpha and confirmatory factorial analysis respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated in a test-retest study, which was conducted on randomly selected participants twice with a 14-21 days interval. RESULTS: 240 participants completed the cross-culturally adapted Spanish questionnaire agreed by the researchers. Internal consistency was high (Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.834) and confirmatory factorial analysis showed a good model fitting to the model proposed in the original version of the scale. The intraclass correlation coefficients for all the items on the questionnaire were higher than 0.8. CONCLUSIóN: PSQ-18 proved to be a valid and reliable instrument, with psychometric properties suitable for the assessment of satisfaction among dermatology patients.

Social Networks and Atopic Dermatitis: Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study. / Redes sociales y dermatitis atópica: estudio descriptivo transversal.

BACKGROUND: Social networks have become key tools for finding and disseminating medical information. OBJECTIVE: To describe the characteristics of social network postings on atopic dermatitis, the content that is posted, and the number of followers of pages, groups, or accounts. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We selected pages, groups, or accounts related to atopic dermatitis on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin during January and February of 2020. For each site, group, or account we recorded country of origin, year created, purpose, presence of links, provision of a contact email, and number of followers. We also analyzed the topics treated in recent content posts on the pages with the largest numbers of followers in each network. RESULTS: A total of 257 pages, groups, or accounts were included: Facebook, 171; Twitter, 59; and LinkedIn, 27. Facebook had the largest total number of pages and mean (SD) number of followers: 1416.71 (3722.63). Patient support groups accounted for most of the pages (63%), but businesses or product offers had more followers (P <.035). Of the 909 posts of informative content we analyzed, the most frequent topic was "general information about atopic dermatitis" (27.94%). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show the importance of clearly defining the roles and limitations of social media platforms for designing future information campaigns and new patient-centered approaches to reaching patients with atopic dermatitis.

Norwegian scabies in a patient with AIDS: report of a case.

A severe form of crusted scabies is described in a patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. He was treated with 1 percent lindane lotion and 5 percent sulfur ointment with 2 percent salicylic acid, which resulted in the clearing of the skin lesions.