Background: Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune connective tissue disorder which is characterised by cutaneous and internal organ fibrosis. Raynaud’s phenomenon is the earliest feature and may precede the onset of the disease by months to years. The heart, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, kidneys and other organs may be involved. Our aim was to evaluate skin thickness and echogenicity in systemic...

OBJECTIVE To verify an association, if it exists, between obesity and blood pressure raised beyond the 90th percentile in children and adolescents, and to determine the measure of adiposity that best correlates with blood pressure in these subjects. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING A school-based study in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. PARTICIPANTS We selected randomly 1,403 students, aged ...

BACKGROUND The depth of graft harvest and the residual dermis available for reepithelization primarily influence the healing of split-skin graft donor sites. When the thigh region is chosen, the authors hypothesize based on thickness measurements that the anterolateral region is the optimal donor site. METHODS Full-thickness skin specimens were sampled from the anteromedial, anterior, and ant...

The use of a prodrug, a conjugate of an active drug with a lipophilic substituent, is a good way of increasing the cutaneous absorption of a drug. However, the activity of dermal hydrolases has rarely been investigated in humans, or experimental animals. In the present study, we focused on the identification of rat dermal esterases and the hydrolysis of a prodrug during permeation across rat sk...

The contribution of body fat distribution to sleep-disordered breathing in women has not been examined in detail (to our knowledge). Fifty women under 65 years of age were diagnosed as having obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by all-night polysomnography in a 6-month period. Twenty-five women underwent body fat measurements of skin folds and circumferences. The 12 premenopausal and 13 postmenopausa...

This study is an attempt to understand the physical growth and nutritional status of Bharia, a primitive tribe of Central India. A cross sectional study was conducted on 551 children (283 boys and 268 girls) aged 4 to 18 years. Body weight, height, sitting height, head circumference, upper arm circumference, chest circumference, biceps, triceps, sub scapular and calf skin fold thickness were me...