We describe a 2 ½ year old boy presenting with fever, abdominal pain and splinter haemorrhages of the nails. On further examination there were signs of pneumonia with pleural effusion. This was treated with mini-thoracotomy, drainage and intravenous antibiotics. Further diagnostic workup for underlying causes showed diffuse cystic lung disease, suggestive of Langerhans cell histiocytosis. This ...

Langerhans' cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a group of disorders in various tissues characterized by the proliferation of Langerhans cells. It is rarely observed in adults. Langerhans cells are dendritic cells that express cluster of differentiation 1a (CD1a) and S100 protein, and contain Birbeck granules. Its etiopathogenesis remains to be elucidated. One possible etiological cause is a reactive p...

With the growing incidence of HIV, there is a desperate need to develop simple, cheap and effective new ways of preventing HIV infection. Male circumcision reduces the risk of infection by about 60%, probably because of the removal of the Langerhans cells which are abundant in the inner foreskin and are the primary route by which HIV enters the penis. Langerhans cells form a vital part of the b...

Block 6 Level 9, Dermatology Unit, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, 169608, Singapore Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a proliferative histiocytic disorder of unknown cause characterized by the accumulation of Langerhan cells in various tissues. Typically a disorder of childhood, features of this disease have been well documented in children but remain ambiguous and poorly documen...

PURPOSE To determine the role of contact lenses, corneal trauma, and Langerhans cells in the development of keratitis caused by Acanthamoeba organisms in Chinese hamsters. METHODS Various methods were used to induce corneal infections in Chinese hamsters, including application of parasite-laden contact lenses. The role of corneal epithelial defects in promoting parasite binding was examined i...

PURPOSE To determine whether epithelium-deprived corneal allografts covered with syngeneic epithelium display immune privilege in orthotopic transplantation and whether syngeneic epithelium containing antigen-presenting cells nullifies this effect. METHODS Epithelium-deprived allogeneic corneas (C57BL/6) and epithelium-deprived allogeneic corneas reconstituted with syngeneic (BALB/c) epitheli...

AIM To analyze the morphological data of pilo-sebaceous units in hirsute women before and 12 months after the antiandrogen treatment with Cyproterone acetate (CPA) 100 mg÷day. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fourteen female patients with idiopathic hirsutism that followed an antiandrogen treatment with CPA were biopsied from the androgen-dependent area of the chin before and 12 months after the treatme...

The nineteenth century was the time of a real revolution in science and medicine. A lot of seminal discoveries in medicine and biology were done in this time, and many of them were coincident with the introduction of the compound microscope by Hermann van Deijl and the standard histological technique by Paul Ehrlich. The main tissue types and individual cells were characterized and originally c...

It has been suggested that a switch in chemokine receptor expression underlies Langerhans cell migration from skin to lymphoid tissue. Activated cells are thought to down-regulate CCR6, whose ligand macrophage inflammatory protein-3 alpha (MIP-3 alpha)/CCL20 is expressed in skin, and up-regulate CCR7, whose ligands are in lymphoid tissues. In Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH), pathologic Lang...