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International travel for the purpose of receiving medical care is increasing. We report a case of disseminated mycobacterial infection after fetal stem cell infusion.

Topical photodynamic therapy (PDT) with aminolevulinic acid (ALA) and 5% imiquimod cream are effective therapies for the treatment of actinic keratoses (AKs), but no split-face studies directly comparing these treatment options are available in the literature.To compare the efficacy and tolerability of ALA-PDT and imiquimod 5% cream for the treatment of AKs.Sixty-one patients were enrolled from the Salt Lake City Veterans Affairs Hospital; 51 completed the study and were included in the analysis. All patients were randomized to receive half of a sachet of imiquimod 5% cream twice weekly on half of their face and two sessions of PDT with 20% solution of ALA applied for 1 hour to the other side of the face. The 75% AK clearance rate was 34.6% for ALA-PDT and 25% for imiquimod 5% cream (p = .30). The mean reduction in AK count was 59.2% for ALA-PDT and 41.4% for imiquimod 5% cream (p = .002). Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) scores were assessed for each treatment modality at week 4 and were 1.95 and 1.38, respectively (p = .20).The sample size was small, and patients applied a small amount of imiquimod 5% cream (half a sachet) to a large surface area.There was no statistically significant difference in treatment response when the 100% or 75% clearance rate cutoff was used, but our secondary outcome suggests that two sessions of ALA-PDT is superior to imiquimod 5% cream for the treatment of AKs. There was no statistically significant difference in effect on quality of life as assessed using the DLQI.

Neonatal pemphigus is a rarely reported transitory autoimmune blistering disease caused by transfer of maternal IgG autoantibodies to desmoglein 3 to the neonate through the placenta when the mother is affected with pemphigus. It is clinically characterized by transient flaccid blisters and erosions on the skin and, rarely, the mucous membranes. Neonatal pemphigus vulgaris has never been reported to persist beyond the neonatal period and progress to adult disease. Gestational pemphigoid is an uncommon, pregnancy-associated, autoimmune blistering disease. This disease typically flares with delivery and then spontaneously resolves within months without treatment. In 5% to 10% of cases, the antibodies responsible for gestational pemphigoid are transferred to the neonate through the placenta, causing transitory blistering in the neonate. While both gestational pemphigoid and pemphigus vulgaris can occur during pregnancy, these clinically, histologically, and serologically distinct diseases are not known to occur simultaneously in the same patient. We describe a case of a 36-year-old woman with clinical evidence of mucocutaneous pemphigus, but not gestational pemphigoid, who had serum antibodies to the antigens responsible for pemphigus as well as those responsible for gestational pemphigoid. This patient gave birth to a neonate with neonatal pemphigus but no evidence of neonatal gestational pemphigoid.

We evaluated melanoma patients’ ability to predict quality of life (QOL) impact of alternate hypothetical melanoma stages after given prognostic and treatment information of that stage. QOL impact was evaluated by calculating utilities, which measure people’s preferences for health states and range from 0 to 1; zero represents a state equivalent to death and 1 represents perfect health in the patient’s mind. We measured utility with a computer-based time trade-off technique, which determines the amount of time patients would trade in order to live a shorter life without melanoma. The ratio of the shorter life duration to the average life expectancy represents that health state’s utility. We defined 6 different melanoma health states based on stage (I, II, and III) and time from diagnosis, new ( one year ago) or old ( one year ago). Subjects were interviewed for three health states: a hypothetical state of paralysis for practice, their own melanoma health state, and an alternate hypothetical melanoma health state, newly diagnosed. For each melanoma health state, subjects were shown a brief presentation of prognosis, treatment, and other patients’ reactions in that health state. One-way ANOVA and post hoc comparisons were used to analyze mean utilities. We recruited 317 consecutive melanoma patients from our database and melanoma clinics. A total of 64 patients (mean age 51.5 years, 50% male, and 100% Caucasian) have participated, as following: 51 old Stage I, 4 new Stage I, 2 old Stage II, 4 old Stage III, and 3 new Stage III. We do not have data for new Stage II patients. No statistically significant differences between real and hypothetical utilities were found for a new diagnosis of Stage I or III. The mean utility ( standard deviation) for real new Stage I was 0.94 ( 0.04); whereas hypothetical new Stage I utilities for patients with real health states of old Stage II, old Stage III, and new Stage III were 0.96 ( 0.05), 0.96 ( 0.05), and 0.91 ( 0.03), respectively. The mean utility for real new Stage III was 0.57 ( 0.26). Hypothetical new Stage III utilities for patients with real states of old and new Stage I were 0.49 ( 0.31) and 0.46 ( 0.23), respectively. Although the number of subjects in this preliminary study is small, these results suggest that hypothetical utilities are similar to the real utilities for melanoma patients, indicating that they may be able to realistically imagine alternate melanoma stages.