A patient with psoriasis was found to have a large skin tumor on his scrotum. He had received psoralen and ultraviolet A radiation therapy to control psoriasis. Histopathologic study revealed that the tumor was a welldifferentiated squamous cell carcinoma. We present this rare case and suggest that the genitalia be shielded during ultraviolet therapy. S. Taniguchi, MD, PhD, Department ot Dermat...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) may be involved in a key mechanism of the skin aging process, influencing several aspects related to the age-related degeneration of skin cells, including antioxidant unbalance. Therefore, we investigated whether the up-modulation of this nuclear receptor exerts a protective effect in a stress-induced premature senescence (SIPS) model bas...

The first report of the use of ‘phototherapy’ in the treatment of skin disorders dates from 1400 BC from India when patients with vitiligo were given certain plant extracts (whose active ingredients included psoralens) and then exposed to the sun. The real interest in the use of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation in the treatment of various skin diseases started in the 19 century when Niels Finsen re...

Cathepsins are lysosomal cysteine proteases, which are involved in a variety of physiologic processes such as proenzyme activation, antigen presentation, tissue remodeling, bone matrix resorption, and pathologic processes such as facilitating tumor invasion and modulating the process of programmed cell death. This study aimed to evaluate the pattern of cathepsin D (CD) expression in chronic pla...