Autoimmune blistering skin diseases develop separation either between epidermal keratinocytes or dermo-epidermal junction. Recent studies have revealed that the autoantigens for these diseases are components of either the desmosome, the cell adhesion junction between keratinocytes, or the hemidesmosome complex, cell adhesion machinery at the dermo-epidermal junction. Thus, the major pemphigus a...

Oral dapsone was used to treat five patients who presented in the acute inflammatory phase of ocular pemphigoid. The diagnosis was made clinically by identifying cicatricial changes which were in some cases difficult to find. In all cases it was the inflammatory rather than the cicatricial features which responded to treatment. An initial dose of 100 mg/day was effective without toxicity. When ...

The use of split-thickness dermal grafts for successful repair of corneal and scleral defects is reported in 10 patients (11 eyes) who had non-infectious, impending, or overt ocular perforation. In all patients, traditional methods of reconstruction were deemed inappropriate or had already failed. Corneo-scleral defects occurred after various operations: pterygium excision, retinal detachment r...

PURPOSE To examine the distribution of human heat shock proteins (HSPs) HSP90, inducible HSP70 (iHSP70), constitutive and inducible HSP70 (cHSP70), HSP65, and human HSP27 in conjunctival biopsy specimens of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP), atopic keratoconjunctivitis, and healthy persons with cataract. METHODS Using an immunoperoxidase technique, conjunctival biopsy specimens from ten pat...