ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the evaluation index of melasma staging by clinical manifestations and non-invasive skin detection technology.Methods A total of 195 patients with a clinical diagnosis of melasma were enrolled from the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University.The skin with lesion enlarged,color darker,erythema,red occured after scratching or lesion faded after compressing with glass belonged to the active stage;on the contrary,it was in the stable stage.Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM),dermoscopy,Mexameter 18 and LAB were used to observe skin lesions of different stage of melasma.Results There were 115 patients (59.0 ％) in the active stage of melasma and 80 patients (41.0 ％) in the stable stage.DMA score in active stage 35.08± 10.59 were significantly higher than that of the stable stage 15.06-4-9.20 (P＜0.05).There were statistically significant difference in the quantity of inflammatory cell and blood vessels between two stages of melasma (P＜0.05).Erythema index (EI) in active stage of melasma 376.35±61.39 were high-er than that of the stable stage 320.364± 62.40 (P＜0.05).A-value in active stage of melasma 13.28± 1.75 were higher than that of the stable stage 12.34± 1.78 (P＜0.05).However,there were no siginificant differences in the quantity of melenin,melanin index (MI),L-value and B-value.Conclusions Melasma could be divided into active stage or stable stage,respectively,according to its clinical manifestations.DMA score,quantity of inflammatory cells and blood vessels,EI and A-value could be used as the reference index of melasma staging.
ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate gene pathways associated with severe acne.Methods Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG)-based pathway analysis was conducted using the genome-wide association study (GWAS) data on 1 056 patients with severe acne and 1 056 healthy controls,and each testee was tested for 900 015 SNPs.A hypergeometric distribution test was used to analyze the relationship between each pathway and severe acne,and the false discovery rate (FDR) to correct for multiple testing.Any pathway with an adjusted P value of ＜ 0.05 was considered to be associated with severe acne.Results Twelve genes were identified to be associated with severe acne (P ＜ 0.001),including TMPRSS11E,DDB2,RIC1,CLLU1OS,IL3,PLA2G4B,SLC16A14,SOX17,FAHD2A,ENTPD7,MRPL50 and TXLNB.Pathway analysis revealed 5 pathways associated with severe acne (adjusted P ＜ 0.05),including the prolactin signaling pathway,hepatitis C,renal cell carcinoma,high affinity receptor for immunoglobulin E (Fc epsilon RI) signaling pathway,and tyrosine metabolism.Conclusion The 5 identified pathways are associated with severe acne,which affect the endocrine,immune and metabolic processes in the human body.