Norwegian scabies mimicking rupioid psoriasis

Norwegian scabies is a highly contagious skin infestation caused by an ectoparasite, Scarcoptes scabiei var. Hominis, which mainly affects immunosuppressed individuals. Clinically, it may simulate various dermatoses such as psoriasis, Darier''s disease, seborrheic dermatitis, among others. This is a case report of a 33-year-old woman, immunocompetent, diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (cancer phobia), who had erythematous, well-defined plaques, covered with rupioid crusts, on her neck, axillary folds, breast, periumbilical region, groin area, besides upper back and elbows, mimicking an extremely rare variant of psoriasis, denominated rupioid psoriasis.     

Systems biology approaches to enhance our understanding of drug hypersensitivity reactions

Hypersensitivity drug reactions (HDRs) encompass a wide spectrum of unpredictable clinical entities. They represent an important health problem, affecting people of all ages, and lead to a large strain on the public health system. Here, we summarize experiments that use high‐throughput genomics technologies to investigate HDRs. We also introduce the field of systems biology as a relatively recent discipline concerned with the integration and analysis of high‐throughput data sets such as DNA microarrays and next‐generation sequencing data. We describe previous studies that have applied systems biology techniques to related fields such as allergy and asthma. Finally, we present a number of potential applications of systems biology to the study of HDRs, in order to make the reader aware of the types of analyses that can be performed and the insights that can be gained through their application.     

Cordoma condroide de localización atípica

Chondroid chordoma is an extremely rare tumour with an annual incidence of around 0.1 cases per 100,000 population. Involvement of the thoracic vertebrae may be present in 2-5% of cases.     

Use of MALDI-TOF MS (Bruker Daltonics) for identification of Mycobacterium species isolated directly from liquid medium

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to describe the evaluation of the use of MALDI-TOF MS for the identification of non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly from liquid MGIT cultures from January 2017 to December 2017.Material/methodsA total of 155 isolates (mainly respiratory) were analyzed by MALDI-TOF MS (Bruker Daltonics) directly from MGIT liquid medium with a previous extraction procedure.ResultsMALDI-TOF MS generated acceptable scores for 152 isolates (98.06%). Fifty isolates were identified as M. tuberculosis complex and the remaining 105 as NTM (M. abscessus subsp. abscessus, M. avium, M. celatum, M chelonae, M. chimaera, M. fortuitum, M. gordonae, M. intracellulare, M. kansasii, M. lentiflavum, M. mageritense, M. mucogenicum and M. xenopi).ConclusionsThese results indicate that MALDI-TOF MS can be useful to identify mycobacteria directly from MGIT cultures and is an accurate, rapid and cost-effective system to be used as a routine method.