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Copyright of Revista de la Asociación Colombiana de Dermatología y Cirugía Dermatológica is the property of Asociacion Colombiana de Dermatologia y Cirugia Dermatologica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de la Asociación Colombiana de Dermatología y Cirugía Dermatológica is the property of Asociacion Colombiana de Dermatologia y Cirugia Dermatologica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de la Asociación Colombiana de Dermatología y Cirugía Dermatológica is the property of Asociacion Colombiana de Dermatologia y Cirugia Dermatologica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de la Asociación Colombiana de Dermatología y Cirugía Dermatológica is the property of Asociacion Colombiana de Dermatologia y Cirugia Dermatologica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Biomedica is the property of Centro de Investigaciones Regionales Dr. Hideyo Noguchi; Facultad de Medicina, UADY and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Medica Colombiana is the property of Acta Medica Colombiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Hepatitis due to Treponema pallidum is a rare entity and its diagnosis represents a clinical challenge. Treponema pallidum should be considered as a presumptive etiology in all patients with acute liver disease, when other frequent causes have been ruled out. We present the case of a young, immunocompetent patient with elevated values in his liver tests, a cholestatic pattern, and maculopapular lesions on his palms and soles. Given his clinical picture, diagnostic tests, and response to the antimicrobial therapy, a diagnosis of cholestasis due to secondary syphilis has been established. It is important to include secondary syphilis within the possible causes of acute liver disease.

San Andrés and Providencia are Colombian islands in the Caribbean Sea. San Andrés has 68,283 inhabitants and has registered cases of leprosy in immigrants from continental Colombia. Providencia has 5,037 inhabitants and historically health programs did not have records of the disease, but in 2009 two cases of multibacillary histoid leprosy were confirmed and, subsequently, another two, which represents a prevalence of 8 cases per 10,000 inhabitants and places the island as a hyperendemic site for leprosy. Initially, a 14-year-old girl with histoid leprosy was diagnosed and, exploring this case, her father was diagnosed with the same clinical form of leprosy. Recently, a new intrafamilial patient with multibacillary leprosy and an extrafamilial case of a girl with undetermined leprosy were detected. The objective of this study was to present to the scientific community and the public health officers these clinical cases and to draw the attention of the sanitary authorities on the necessity of establishing continuous programs of leprosy epidemiological surveillance on the island using the new tools available in the Programa de Control de la Lepra (Leprosy Control Program).

Objectives: Determining the occurrence of leprosy amongst couples and establishing the type of leprosy in index and secondary cases., Methods: The characteristics of leprosy were studied between 1980 and 2000 in Atlántico Department located on the Colombian Caribbean Coast. Clinical histories of patients registered in the Leprosy Control Programme were reviewed. Clinical exams were performed and personal interviews carried out with couples suffering from leprosy., Results: Twenty-six married couples were found to be suffering from leprosy, representing 5.4% of leprosy cases detected during the study period. They were aged from 20 to 89. 65.4% of the index cases were men and 22 (84.6%) were multibacillary, lepromatous cases; two had indeterminate leprosy and two were suffering from tuberculoid leprosy. Sixty-one percent of the secondary cases were paucibacillary patients, 42% of them being tuberculoid. No paucibacillary cases were associated with multibacillary leprosy in the couples. Only two couples had consanguinity. None of the couples had had leprosy at the time of being married. The time between leprosy being detected in index cases and the disease being detected in secondary patients varied from 5 to 40 years. Disabilities were more common in the feet and to a higher degree in lepromatous index cases who had had the disease for a longer time than the secondary cases because these were more frequently paucibacillary patients who had a disease having shorter evolution., Conclusions: In spite of ongoing, prolonged contact, conjugal leprosy is not frequent and requires several years to develop in the second person. Lepromatous leprosy in index cases was more frequently associated with leprosy in the couple. When the primary case was paucibacillary, no multibacillary leprosy occurred in the secondary case.

Conidiobolomycosis is a subcutaneous mycosis of the facial midline affecting primarily adult males. It is caused by the saprophytic fungus, Conodiobolus coronatus, present in soils and dried vegetables, characteristic of intertropical regions. C. coronatus belongs to the class Zygomycetes, order Entomophthorales; it is a fungus composed of thick, short hyphae that grows at temperatures between 30 degrees C and 37 degrees C and causes nasal granulomas. The histologic findings are described of a case of conidiobolomycosis in a 31-year-old male, born and resident in the Urabá region of Colombia. He presented with a mid-facial deformity of the nose and upper lip edema, and polypoid images in the maxillary sinuses with destruction of the nasal septum. The biopsy revealed a diffuse inflammatory lesion located in the deep dermis and in the hypodermis corresponding to a necrotizing granuloma. Associated eosinophils and the presence of the Splendore-Hoeppli phenomenon were noted in the vacant central zone which apparently corresponded to location of the fungal hyphae. They did not stain with HE stain, but reacted to the PAS and Grocott staining techniques and appeared as rigid, thick-walled hyphae, centrally twisted and with cone-shaped endings.

Vitamin A is essential for vertebrate embryonic development; dietary carotenoids are the primary source of vitamin A since animals cannot synthesize it de novo. To study the role of beta-carotene during embryonic development, we analyzed in chick embryos the expression of beta,beta-carotene 15,15'-oxygenase (beta-oxy) which cleaves beta-carotene to produce two molecules of retinal. Beta-oxy transcripts were detected in one-and-a-half- to five-day-old embryo homogenates and in situ hybridization in five-day-old embryos, revealing their presence in tissues including the central nervous system, lungs, limbs, and cardiovascular system. Moreover, we detected beta-oxy enzymatic activity in extracts from five-day-old embryos as well as small amounts of beta-carotene in the egg yolk. These results indicate that beta-oxy is present during early developmental stages, raising the possibility that yolk-stored beta-carotene is utilized as a source of vitamin A. Thus, our results suggest that beta-carotene could play an important role in early avian embryonic development as a local source of vitamin A in specific tissues.