Jennifer Vines This is the fi rst of 12 Correspondence pieces in this issue that are in response to an important PLoS Medicine Research Article: Auvert B, Taljaard D, Lagarde E, Sobngwi-Tambekou J, Sitta R, et al. (2005) Randomized, controlled intervention trial of male circumcision for reduction of HIV infection risk: The ANRS 1265 trial. PLoS Med 2(11): e298. Readers wishing to add their own ...

Background Onychomycosis is a fungal infection causing progressive destruction of the nail elements, with age increasing frequency of infection and potential for complications. The condition accounts for almost half of all nail issues yet continues to be largely under-reported and untreated. This study will investigate the antifungal efficacy of eucalyptus oil in vivo, for fungal nail infection...

Of 135 consecutive patients admitted with subtrochanteric fractures of the femur, 104 were studied; half had internal fixation with a Zickel nail and half had a nail-plate device. Fractures treated with a Zickel nail had significantly less blood loss during operation and took less time to walk with full weight-bearing, but the incidence of technical error at operation was higher. Errors include...

Encouraging sustainable water use is a critical endeavor in addressing issues associated with shortand long-term droughts. Toilets account for up to 26.7% of indoor household water use. Therefore substantial opportunity exists to conserve water via reduced flushing after urination at home. Here, we use an online survey (N 1⁄4 1008) to identify barriers to reduced flushing. The majority of parti...

The Gold Rush (figure 1), a 1925 classic silent movie by Chaplin, depicted him in his trademark little tramp character as a lone prospector searching for the precious metal somewhere in Alaska. On 16 November 2011, the release of the current revision of the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) Executive Summary in Shanghai, China, just recently published elsewhere, gave...

Manicures can result in nail damage via instrumentation, nail polish, nail polish removers, and artificial nails. We report nail weakness, brittleness, and thinning in five subjects after the application of a new manicure system called gel polish and removal with acetone and manual peeling. All subjects complained that the polish was very difficult to remove and that their nails became much thi...

We hypothesize that nails have an automatic curvature feature and that their flat shape is maintained by the daily upward mechanical forces from the finger/toe pad. Thus, nail deformities, such as pincer nail, spoon nail, and koilonychias, may be caused by an imbalance between these forces and can be treated by controlling these forces. Here, we report the case of a 55-year-old man whose severe...

BACKGROUND Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma can be associated with clinically significant nail alterations, the presentation of which can be protean and misleading. To date, only a few reports have demonstrated direct specific tumor infiltration of the nail bed, while little is known about the efficacy of topical treatments. OBSERVATIONS We describe the case of a 93-year-old man presenting with Séza...

Twenty Nail Dystrophy (TND) is a rare acquired idiopathic nail dystrophy characterized by excess longitudinal ridging, distal notching, splitting, loss of nail luster and thinning of nail plates that may affect 1 to 20 nails. It occurs as a common manifestation of various dermatoses affecting the nail unit like lichen planus, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, onychomycosis, vitiligo and alopecia ar...

the witkop syndrome is a rare autosomal dominant disorder characterized by the absence of several teeth and abnormalities of the nails. this is the first report of a rare genetic tooth and nail syndrome diagnosed in a 2.5-year-old boy with early exfoliation of the primary canine, absence of the primary incisors, and nail dysplasia. a homozygous mutation was identified in 3’-utr of msx1 gene in ...