Journal of

Background and Aim: Tumor angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth and appears to play an importating role both in invasive growth and metastasis. Basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) of the skin are derived from a similar cell type but differ in the invasive and metastatic potential. Basal cell carcinoma generally shows a relatively benign course in contrast to squamous cell carcinoma .This study investigates whether the behavior of these tumors could be explained by differences in their angiogenesis pattern.
Methods: Vessel counts were made of blood vessels in stroma and the body of 50 variants of BCC of skin samples including: nodular, micronodular, sclerosing and superficial, both after H&E and immunohistochemical staining for CD31 and CD34 markers.
Results: The body vessel counts of invasive variants (sclerosing & micronodular) differed significantly from the counts of noninvasive variants (nodular and superficial) using both CD31 & CD34 markers. The stromal vessel counts compared between invasive and noninvasive variants showed no significantly difference using CD31 & CD34 markers, respectively.
Conclusion: The invasive growth pattern of BCC variants correlated with the microvascular density and according to results, vessel counts of the body play a more important role.

Background and Aim: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory dermatosis that affects 0.6% to 4.8% of the general population. Our aim was to compare the effect of narrow band UVB (NB-UVB) on normal flora of cutaneous plaques and normal skin in psoriatic patients.

Methods: Twenty psoriatic patients without any contraindication of phototherapy were enrolled in this study. Samples from psoriatic lesions and adjacent normal skin, before and after phototherapy with NB-UVB were taken. Patients were treated with NB-UVB three times weekly until complete remission. Finally, quantity of normal cutaneous flora on normal and involved skin, before and after treatment was compared.

Results: The mean±SD of the NB-UVB sessions and the mean cumulative dose were 26.35±4.95 and 2.05±0.57 J/cm², respectively. The number of Staphylococcus epidermidis, S. aureus and diphtheroids on psoriatic plaques reduced after phototherapy.

Conclusuion: The quantity of normal cutaneous flora on normal skin is less than psoriatic plaques, and it reduced on normal and involved skin after phototherapy.

Background and Aim: Microdermabrasion is a minimally invasive technology that is widely used in the field of cosmetic medicine. The mechanism of action of microdermabrasion is mechanical peeling of the skin using metal crystals. This review was conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of microdermabrasion in the treatment of scar, acne, striae and its other indications.

Methods: A comprehensive electronic search was done in clinical evidence databases for clinical trials, systematic reviews, health economic evaluations, and health technology studies. The databases and search engines were PubMed, Ovid Medline, Scopus, Turning Research into Practice (TRIP), Center for Reviews and Disseminations (CRD), Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), National Health System Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Cochrane Library, and ClinicalKey. The search was done up to July 2014. Key references were manually searched to find relevant studies. The eligible articles were investigated regarding the safety and efficacy of microdermabrasion.

Results: This systematic review includes 19 studies with a total of 368 patients, whom were treated with microdermabrasion for treatment of acne, vitiligo, melasma, acne scars, striae, skin rejuvenation, photo damaged skin and, photo-aging. Appraisal of the studies supported the efficacy and safety of microdermabrasion in treating the aforementioned skin problems.

Conclusion: Microdermabrasion, either as a single therapeutic intervention or in combination with other interventions, can be used in the treatment of several skin diseases and conditions. Since its side effects are milder than some other interventions, generally, it is considered as a safe method.

Background and Aim: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world, as well as skin cancer is the most common cancer among human cancers and causes great costs and economic and social harm to society. The increase in skin cancer in our country and also in Ardabil province led us to study the prevalence and epidemiological trend of 10 years of skin cancer in patients referred to the skin clinic in Ardabil 2011-2021.
 

Methods: In this study, 331 patients had been referred to a dermatology clinic with a diagnosis of skin cancer during 2011 to 2021. The checklists were completed based on the information in their files.
 

Results: Of all patients, 208 (62.8%) were male, 60.4% from Ardabil, 14.2% were in year 2016 and 46.2% were in the age group of 50-70 years. The mean age of patients was 62.5±14.7 in range 25-96 years. The most common type of skin cancer in the studied samples during ten years was related to BCC with 184 cases (55.6%) and the most studied patients were in grade 3 with 231 patients (69.8%). The most common site of skin cancer with 93 cases (28.1%) was in the nose.
 

Conclusion: Results showed that the trend of skin cancer in the studied samples similar to the provincial statistics did not have a constant decrease or increase trend and had a fluctuating trend. The incidence of this disease in male clients was about twice that of female clients and most cases were in high grades and BCC type.