ESMED General Assembly 2022
4-6 August, Madrid
Session: Focus on Dermatology
The field of Dermatology is constantly evolving as new methods and ideas advance our knowledge. The Dermatology session at the 2022 ESMED General Assembly will have an emphasis on three key topics:
- Melanoma
- Dermatitis
- Psoriasis
A look at this year's Dermatology presentations
Rebecca Morris
The Hormel Institute/University of Minnesota
Bone marrow derived cells in cutaneous malignancy
We used allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) in the context of a murine multistage cutaneous carcinogenesis model to demonstrate recruitment of bone marrow-derived epithelial cells to skin tumors initiated with the carcinogen, 7, 12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA), and promoted with 12-O-tetradecanolyphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). Bone marrow cells formed small and large clusters in the tumor epithelium, where they expressed cytokeratins, proliferated, and stratified. In a second experiment, naïve female mice receiving BMTs from DMBA-treated donors developed benign and malignant lesions after TPA promotion alone. In contrast, if the donor mice were treated with the corn oil vehicle prior to BMT, the recipients did not develop any cutaneous lesions when promoted with TPA. We conclude that bone marrow cells contribute to the development of papillomas and chronic cutaneous ulcers. Furthermore, carcinogen-exposed BMCs can initiate benign and malignant lesions in the microenvironment of tumor promotion. Therefore, a subset of squamous lesions long thought to be solely local in origin have a distinct systemic component. These findings may suggest novel targets for treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers.
Natasa Teovska Mitrevska
ReMedika General Hospital Skopje, Macedonia
Quality of life is defined by the World Health Organization as “individuals’ perceptions of
their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns.” Often overlooked in the past, it is nowadays considered,in a more holistic view of medicine, a decisive factor to understand the impact of diseases andimprove the quality of medical care. Such evaluation is particularly relevant for dermatological diseases,because visibility of the lesions can significantly affect self-esteem and social relationships. Vitiligo represents an emblematic case: often disfiguring and located in visible areas, confused in the past (and,in many world regions, even in the present) with leprosy, often perceived by physicians as a harmless,purely cosmetic problem, it significantly decreases the quality of life of affected persons.The brief description of the most relevant studies published on this topic shows that they only measured the quality of life in vitiligo patients and compared with the affection of the skin and demographic parameters.
Recently performed systematic review for outcome measures for vitiligo revealed that only 9% of randomised controlled trials evaluated quality of life. However, patients and clinicians consider this outcome of great importance. In order to address the above issue, quality of life is proposed as one of the core outcomes measures for future vitigo trials and therefore more research is needed to establish the correlation of quality of life and disease characteristics in vitiligo patients.
This research is the first international multicenter study that is carry under the VRF (Vitiligo Research Foundation) a no-profit organization aimed to fund and fast-track medical research, as well as connect investigators, care providers, patients and philantropists, to accelerate vitiligo research and relieve suffering of patients.This study not only measures the QL but also aims to give answers about correlation between quality of life, disease activity and patients’ demographic and disease characteristics. Our purpose is to detect those at risk of experiencing a poor quality of life and to identify variables that might predict this impairment
