ITCHING IN SYPHILIS

An itching plaque

A 30-year-old woman presented to our hospital in Manacor, Mallorca, with a new lesion on the thorax that had appeared three to four months earlier, had gradually enlarged and was slightly itchy. The patient was otherwise healthy. Physical examination revealed a tender, brownish papule or plaque contacting the elastic band of the underwear under the right breast (Figure 1). The remaining physica...

Itching in Syphilitic Skin Eruptions

Itching in the psychiatric ward.

Chronic itch is known to have psychogenic elements; however, there is no data on itch prevalence and characteristics among hospitalized psychiatric patients. We investigated the prevalence and types of itching among hospitalized psychiatric patients who met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia, affective or other psychiatric disorders. A validated itch questionnaire based on the McGill Pain Questi...

Wheezing and itching

The development of allergic inflammation requires the orchestration of gene expression from the inflamed tissue and from the infiltrating immune cells. Since many of the cytokines that promote allergic inflammation signal through hematopoietin family receptors, the Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (STAT) family have obligate roles in pro-allergic cytokine-induced gene regulation...

Itching for Insight

The itch sensation results from the excitation of primary sensory nerve endings in the skin, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are not completely understood. Liu et al. (2009) now report that some members of the Mrgpr class of G protein-coupled receptors mediate the itch caused by the antimalarial drug chloroquine.