Dr John Loughnane looks at the recent guidelines, issued by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, on the treatment of atopic eczema in children Atopic eczema (AE) is a chronic, relapsing, pruritic dermatosis, with a tendency to favour flexural areas. It is most likely caused by a mixture of genetic predisposition, host [...]

Leading Dutch dermatologists have urged colleagues and health services to devise strategies to treat skin cancer as a chronic disease. “To manage the future costs and quality of care for patients with skin cancer, a revised health strategy is needed,” according to Dr Simone van der Geer, of Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, and colleagues. [...]

Survivors of one melanoma appear approximately nine times as likely as the general population to develop a second melanoma, a new American study has found. Doctors based at the National Cancer Institute used nine cancer registries to identify 89,515 patients who survived at least two months after an initial melanoma diagnosis between 1973 and 2006. [...]

Augmenting the lips with grafts of muscle and connective tissue from the neck appears to result in improved appearance for at least two years, according to a new report. The report followed a study in which plastic surgeons treated 25 consecutive patients who underwent lip augmentation with segments of their own sternocleidomastoid muscle and fascia. [...]

Dr Dmitri Wall and Prof Sarah Rogers look at the different clinical types of psoriasis and examine the many treatment options, including topical treatments, phototherapy, systemic therapy and biologic agents Psoriasis is a chronic dermatosis characterised by red scaly patches which classically occur on extensor aspects of the limbs. Psoriasis is most prevalent in the [...]

Irish people living with psoriasis have indicated that the condition has a ‘very large effect’ on their lives, according to a new international survey. Erica Mills reports on the study’s findings and the latest medical advice Psoriasis can have a detrimental effect on the relationships, careers and emotional well-being of those with the condition, according [...]

Defects in the filaggrin gene are associated with a significantly increased risk of developing some allergic disorders such as eczema, rhinitis and asthma, a new study has concluded. Allergic diseases have increased in recent decades and now affect up to one in three children in economically developed countries. For many years, researchers have looked for [...]