RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: No study has yet compared the efficacy of endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy for treating facial blushing with other treatment or no treatment. We conducted a prospective, observational, open-label, clinical study to compare endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy for blushing with generalized social anxiety disorder versus sertraline treatment and no treatment. METHOD: Three-hundred and thirty consecutive patients seeking treatment for their blushing were assessed by psychiatric interview and patient-rated scales. The Brief Social Phobia Scale was the primary outcome measure. Patients meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria for generalized social anxiety disorder, scoring 20 points or more in the Brief Social Phobia Scale and 19 points or more in the Social Phobia Inventory were considered eligible and followed up for a mean of 11 months (range 1-64) after endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy or initiation of sertraline. RESULTS: At baseline, 97 percent of the endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy-treated group, 87 percent of the sertraline-treated group, and 78 percent of the nontreated group rated their blushing as being "severe" or "extreme." At follow up, 16 percent of endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy-treated patients, 32 percent of sertraline-treated patients, and 57 percent of untreated patients reported this degree of blushing. At endpoint, Brief Social Phobia Scale total scores exhibited a greater decline with either treatment than with no treatment. Nonetheless, in comparison to no treatment, only the results obtained with endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy achieved statistical significance (p=0.003). Compensatory sweating occurred in 99 percent of patients who underwent endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy. High degrees of satisfaction with treatment were reported by 89 percent of patients undergoing endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy and by 59 percent of patients taking medication. CONCLUSION: Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy was associated to a greater reduction of blushing and Brief Social Phobia Scale scores, and higher degrees of satisfaction with treatment, in comparison to sertraline and no treatment.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: Richter's transformation of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) to cutaneous diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is very rare. We took the advantage of one of these cases to test the hypothesis that the chemokine receptor CCR4 is involved in the homing of CLL cells to skin. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We evaluated CCR4 expression by flow cytometry in both circulating and skin CD19(+) leukemic cells from a patient with cutaneous DLBCL. As controls, we used peripheral blood samples from CLL patients without skin manifestations and from elderly healthy donors. RESULTS: We found that both DLBCL cells derived from the original CLL clone and circulating CLL cells from this patient expressed CCR4. Although it was previously reported that CCR4 is not expressed in CLL cells, we found that a low but significant proportion of leukemic cells from CLL patients with no skin manifestations do express CCR4. There was a positive correlation between the expression of CCR4 and the percentage of ZAP-70 of each sample. Moreover, we consistently observed a higher expression of CCR4 within CD19(+)CD38(+) and CD19(+)Ki67(+) subsets compared to CD19(+)CD38(-) and CD19(+)Ki67(-) lymphocytes from the same sample, respectively. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the chemokine receptor CCR4 is not a special feature of CLL cells with skin manifestation, but rather it is expressed in a low but significant proportion of peripheral blood CLL cells.
