Monitoring Sleep and Scratch Improves Quality of Life in Patients with Atopic Dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis itch may cause sleep disturbance and impair quality of life. For patients finding topical therapy difficult to continue, it is important to control itch and reduce scratching. This study developed algorithms to measure nocturnal sleep and scratch, using an actigraph device worn on the back of the hand, and assessed smartphone application feedback to improve adherence with therapy. In the first trial, actigraph measurements in 5 participants who wore the device were highly correlated with measurements by a sleep-monitoring device beneath the mattress. Total actigraph-measured scratching duration for each hour of sleep was highly correlated with measurements by a person rating infrared video-recording of the sleepers. In the second trial, 40 patients with atopic dermatitis were randomly allocated into an intervention group that used the actigraph and smartphone application, and a control group that did not. Both groups were instructed to use the same moisturizer. Dermatology Life Quality Index scores decreased significantly from baseline and were lower than those in the control group at week 8. It is suggested that the device and associated smartphone application reinforced therapy adherence, moisturizer use, and contributed to improved quality of life in patients with atopic dermatitis.

Effects of imatinib mesylate on cutaneous neurofibromas associated with neurofibromatosis type 1.

Imatinib mesylate seemed to inhibit development of cutaneous neurofibromas (c-NFs) and promote growth of pre-existing c-NFs in our neurofibromatosis type 1 case. This report potentially provides new findings in the effects of imatinib mesylate.

Clinical features of 58 Japanese patients with mosaic neurofibromatosis 1.

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by mutation in the NF1 tumor-suppressor gene, and may sometimes manifest in a mosaic form. "Segmental NF1" is generally assumed to be the result of somatic mosaicism for a NF1 mutation, and patients with mosaic NF1 have typical features of NF1 limited to specific body segments. The clinical features of 58 patients (42 females and 16 males; aged 1-69 years; mean age, 23.4 years) with mosaic NF1 seen at the Jikei University Hospital during 2004-2007 and at the Jikei University Daisan Hospital during 2007-2011, were retrospectively studied. Somatic or gonosomal mosaicism was not investigated. Patients were classified into four groups: (i) pigmentary changes (café-au-lait spots and freckling) only (n = 32); (ii) neurofibromas only (n = 5); (iii) neurofibromas and pigmentary changes (n = 13); and (iv) solitary plexiform neurofibromas (n = 8). The area of involvement was variable. The majority of patients were asymptomatic, except patients with plexiform neurofibromas who presented most commonly with pain or tenderness. Lisch nodules were rarely seen. Only four of our 58 patients (6.9%) had specific NF1 complications, including language delay (n = 1) and bone deformity (n = 3). Two patients were ascertained through their children with generalized NF1. Patients with mosaic NF1 are at low risk of developing disease-associated complications, except patients with plexiform neurofibromas. However, they need to be aware of the small risk of having a child with generalized NF1.

The use of next-generation sequencing in molecular diagnosis of neurofibromatosis type 1: a validation study.

AIMS: We assessed the validity of a next-generation sequencing protocol using in-solution hybridization-based enrichment to identify NF1 mutations for the diagnosis of 86 patients with a prototypic genetic syndrome, neurofibromatosis type 1. In addition, other causative genes for classic genetic syndromes were set as the target genes for coverage analysis. RESULTS: The protocol identified 30 nonsense, 19 frameshift, and 8 splice-site mutations, together with 10 nucleotide substitutions that were previously reported to be pathogenic. In the remaining 19 samples, 10 had single-exon or multiple-exon deletions detected by a multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification method and 3 had missense mutations that were not observed in the normal Japanese SNP database and were predicted to be pathogenic. Coverage analysis of the genes other than the NF1 gene included on the same diagnostic panel indicated that the mean coverage was 115-fold, a sufficient depth for mutation detection. CONCLUSIONS: The overall mutation detection rate using the currently reported method in 86 patients who met the clinical diagnostic criteria was 92.1% (70/76) when 10 patients with large deletions were excluded. The results validate the clinical utility of this next-generation sequencing-based method for the diagnosis of neurofibromatosis type 1. Comparable detection rates can be expected for other genetic syndromes, based on the results of the coverage analysis.

A case of angioedema associated with decreased C1 inhibitor activity.

BACKGROUND: We report a case of a 31-year-old woman who began to notice swelling of her arms at age 20. She was once given a diagnosis of cellulitis, but her symptoms spontaneously resolved. The patient had swelling of the left forearm and palm and was referred to our department for evaluation. She had slight pain but no obvious weight gain. CASE SUMMARY: Antinuclear antibody and other autoantibodies, including anti-ds-DNA antibody, anti-RNP antibody, anti-Sm antibody, and anti-SS-A antibody were not detected. C1 inhibitor activity was low, C3 was normal, C4 was low, CH(50) was low, and C1q was normal. DISCUSSION: Based on the presence of the typical clinical features and the positive results on the complement tests, we diagnosed hereditary angioedema. A decrease in C1 inhibitor activity and an increase in specific protein concentrations indicated type 1.