[Amyopathic dermatomyositis]. / K problematike amyopatickej dermatomyozitídy.

Dermatomyositis represents a progressive autoimmune disease of the connective tissue with SLE-like dermatitis, with inflammatory myopathy and muscular weakness. It is an infrequent and serious disease affecting not only the skin and striated muscle. Cases without skin affection are classified as polymyositis. Beside autoimmune mechanisms, aetiology includes also genetic, environmental and paraneoplastic factors. Clinical skin symptoms as well as histopathological findings include Gottron's papulae, heliotropic periorbital erythrema, which, together with palpebral oedema, brings about the weepy look of patients. None of these signs is pathognomic and beside the cutaneous symptoms the diagnosis requires 3 out of 4 other diagnostic criteria for the muscle symptoms. Cutaneous symptoms can precede myositis with various time intervals; such situation is sometimes classified as Amyopathic dermatomyositis (ADM), dermatitis sine myositis or skin dermatomyositis. A case of an ADM patient and the analysis of problematic including the strategy of therapy are presented.

Phaeohyphomycosis due to Alternaria spp. and Phaeosclera dematioides: a histopathological study.

A case of phaeohyphomycosis caused by strains of both Alternaria spp. and Phaeosclera dematioides is presented. The biopsy material was studied using histological, immunohistochemical and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The agent's dematiaceous mycelia are composed of thick-walled hyphae, branched and unbranched, with terminal vesicular formations. All the described structures occur alone or in chains within multinuclear giant foreign body-type cells or invading an abscess. Also present are budding forms. Immunostaining of histiocytic inflammatory cells in either. diffuse or granulomatous infiltrates revealed cytoplasmic positivity for lysozyme and Ki-MIP antibody. The lymphocytic infiltrates of the upper corium show predominantly small T lymphocytes (CD3 and CD45RO positive) and absence of CD20-positive B cells. Plasma cells occurring within the infiltrates of the deeper parts show polyclonal expression of both Ig light chains.

[Morphologic study of mastocytes from skin biopsies in patients with non-systemic and systemic mastocytosis]. / Morfologická stúdia mastocytov z kozných biopsií pacientov s nesystémovou a systémovou mastocytózou.

The authors describe morphologic changes in mastocytes in the picture of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and skin changes in patients with urticaria pigmentosa (7 causes) and systemic mastocytosis (2 causes). The presented study analyzes the changes in the cellular membrane and cytoplasmic processes, intracytoplasmic membrane structures, mitochondria, granules, and nuclei of mastocytes in patients with systemic mastocytosis. The authors evaluate these cells as being atypical, respectively immature. The study discusses the malignization of these states. (Tab. 2, Fig. 8, Ref. 16.)