Active clinical trials for "Skin Diseases"

The aim of this study is to estimate the accuracy of CL Detect Rapid Test™ compared to a composite reference standard test (Direct examination of skin smears + PCR test) in patients with clinically suspected Cutaneous Leishmaniasis disease in Morocco.

Approximately 3,000 of clinically significant isolates of different species from respective respective sources in geographically distinct Russian cities will be collected and tested on ceftaroline and other antimicrobials.

Acne vulgaris usually causes psychological distress, depression, and anxiety disorders that may impair neurocognitive functions such as memory, attention, psychomotor speed, and executive functions, which are also common psychiatric disorders in patients with acne. The purpose of this study is to determine cognitive functioning in treatment naive acne patients, without a history of any psychiatric disorder.

This is a 3 months single centre clinical patient-oriented study to evaluate the prevalence and impairment in QOL of dermatologic diseases in patients hospitalised in internal medicine. Up to 200 patients hospitalised at the division of internal medicine for any reason are going to be offered participation by a patient information form given to patients at the time of admission, as well as oral information about the study. Written informed consent will be obtained by the investigators after patients have had adequate time to consider their participation in the study. Participating patients will be examined clinically for dermatologic pathologies at a single visit. In the case of signs of dermatologic disease, investigators are going to recommend further diagnostic procedures to the physician in charge and/or the referring physician, depending on the urgency of the suspected diagnosis. This procedure is meant to avoid giving referring physicians the impression that active patient acquisition for the department of Dermatology is an aim of this study. Diagnostic procedures that are performed upon suspicion of a specific dermatologic disease at the Division of Internal Medicine are going to be performed during the hospitalisation period. All other diagnostic or operative procedures are going to be advised to the referring physician. Study participants are going to be interviewed by the investigators about impairment in QOL of their illnesses. Two separate questionnaires are going to be filled in by each participant. For measurement of general QOL, the widely used SF-12 questionnaire (8 questions) is going to be used. To measure specific impairment in QOL by dermatologic disease, participants are going to be asked to fill in the DLQI (Dermatology life quality index, 10 questions). Photographic documentation of specific identified lesions will be made and pictures stored exclusively in the secured electronic patient file (KISIM). Medication and all identified diseases will be noted. All diagnostically useful information is going to be recorded in the patient file and transmitted to the referring physician in the discharge letter.

The purpose of this study is to identify the genes responsible for certain scaling disorders and other inherited skin diseases and to learn about the medical problems they cause. In some cases, these may include problems affecting organs other than the skin, such as the eyes, teeth and bones. Patients with inherited skin disorders, including Darier's disease (keratosis follicularis), lamellar ichthyosis, epidermolysis bullosa, cystic acne, and others, and their relatives may be eligible for this study. Patients will have a medical history, physical examination with particular emphasis on the skin, and routine blood tests. Additional procedures for patients and unaffected relatives may include: Blood sample collection Dental exam with X-ray of the jaw Eye examination X-rays of the skull, ribs, chest, hands, feet, spine, arms, or legs Bone density scan Photographs of the skin Skin biopsies (removal of a small tissue sample under local anesthetic) Buccal sample (gentle brushing inside the cheek to collect a cell sample) for gene studies Patients who request the results of their gene testing will be provided this information.

Travelers (n = 30, 15 taking low-dose methotrexate (MTX), 15 healthy controls (HC), seeking travel advice in one of the following Swiss Travel Centers (Aarau, Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich) and who have an indication for yellow fever (YF) vaccination according to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health's vaccination recommendations are invited to participate in this study. After signing the consent form (i) YF viremia and (ii) anti-YF antibody production in patients taking low-dose MTX and HC will be compared after YF vaccination. It will be analyzed whether the percentage of people with protective antibodies differs between the two groups and (iii) vaccine side effects will be compared between the groups.

Pro-inflammatory cytokines are critically important drivers of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and cytokine-targeted biologics have been transformative in the treatment of several inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. As the diversity of approved cytokine-targeted biologic therapies grows, it will become increasingly important to stratify patients on the basis of specific genetic or disease biomarker phenotypes to ensure that patients receive the appropriate cytokine-targeted biologic, at the appropriate dose, and at the appropriate time. This project aims to explore patterns of pro-inflammatory cytokine/chemokine expression within normal versus (i) psoriatic, (ii) eczematic, (iii) ichthyotic human skin, as well as in human and mouse models of skin inflammation, with the objective of identifying cytokine response profiles ('cytokine fingerprints') that will provide a molecular basis for (a) the stratification of patients into disease subtypes that (b) enable cytokine-directed biologics to be targeted towards patients that are most likely to benefit from them. The investigators anticipate that 'cytokine fingerprinting' will aid in the selection of the most appropriate biologics in patients that are most likely to benefit from such therapies.

The spectrum of pathologies accompanied by tissue mineral deposits is wide. In dermatology, several pathologies are associated with calcium mineral deposits, such as calciphylaxis and pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE). However, few studies have been carried out on the chemical characteristics of these deposits, their implication on the pathophysiology and their consequences. This motivated our two previous studies on the characterization of skin mineral deposits during calciphylaxis and sarcoidosis. We have shown that these deposits were most often composed of carbapatite and preferentially localized to elastic fibers. Most calcifying dermatoses are preceded by an inflammatory skin condition. Some authors suspect the digestion of elastin by metalloproteinase (MMP) of the extracellular matrix, thus creating nucleation nuclei favoring phosphocalcic deposits. We thus wish to study the structural alteration of dermal elastic fibers during calcifying dermatoses using multiphoton microscopy, a tool available at the Laboratoire d'Optique et Biosciences (LOB) at the Ecole Polytechnique. Multiphoton microscopy presents several contrast modes that can be used in parallel and without marking. This makes it possible to identify constituent elements of tissues without the use of artificially added fluorescent dyes or proteins, for example fibrillar collagen by the so-called "SHG" contrast and elastin by its intrinsic fluorescence. It is then possible to deeply image an intact tissue, without staining, by specifically visualizing its various components. Used in several studies on the skin, including the LOB, multiphoton microscopy has shown its interest in the characterization of dermal fibers, in particular elastin and collagen fibers, but also in the structural study of these and of their possible alteration. It has thus been applied to the study of skin aging, but also of pathologies leading to degeneration of elastic fibers (PXE) or collagen (Marfan syndrome). The main objective of our project is to characterize the structural alterations of elastic fibers during calcifying dermatoses. The secondary objectives are to study the consequences of skin inflammatory phenomena on the deterioration of elastic fibers and to identify a possible nucleus of phospho-calcium deposits within elastic dermal and vascular fibers. We will thus study human skin biopsies already carried out in the context of the diagnosis of these calcifying dermatoses, skin biopsies from the murine model of PXE and in control, human biopsies of healthy skin from patients of different ages (excision margin of skin tumors). This project should provide a better understanding of the genesis of skin phosphocalcic deposits and provide therapeutic avenues for treating them and limiting their occurrence.

The purpose of this study is to determine if topical steroids treatment for different skin diseases suppress the adrenal cortisol production.

This is a multi-center, sample collection study to quantitatively assess the presence of gene mutations in subject's skin collected non-invasively. Subjects who consult with a dermatologist or other clinicians will be approached for participation in the study. Once IRB approved informed consent is obtain, subject demographic information, history of sun exposure and samples will be collected.