The body's skin frontier and the challenges of wound healing: keloids

Keloid scars. Modern aspects of diagnosis and treatment

Cicatricial skin hypertrophy includes keloids and hypertrophic scars. Keloid scarring is thought to result from an imbalance between increased synthesis of collagen and extracellular matrix and decreased degradation of these products. Current knowledge of keloid pathophysiology prompts clinicians to investigate new methods for the diagnosis and treatment of keloids, as well as their prevention.

Giant bilateral keloids of the ear lobule: Case report and brief review of literature

Keloids are abnormal tissue response to cutaneous injury. They are benign fibrocollagenous growth that rise above the skin surface and extend beyond the borders of the original wound. They may also rarely regress spontaneously and show a high level of recurrence after treatment. They usually arise after cutaneous insult, but idiopathic spontaneous etiology is also reported. Their high recurrence creates nuisance not only for the patient but also for the doctors. Bilateral keloids of ear lobules are rare. We report one such case of giant keloids of bilateral ear lobules in a 42-year-old male patient. Keloids have known to be notorious for their poor response to treatment owing to complex and ill-deciphered pathophysiology. Recent studies indicate that transforming growth factor beta and platelet-derived growth factor play an integral role in the formation of keloids. In this article, we have reviewed the available literature to discuss the pathophysiology and treatment modalities that may be used to prevent the recurrence of keloids.

Custom made pressure appliance for presurgical sustained compression of auricular keloid

Keloid is dermal lesion characterized by nodular fibroblastic proliferation, which is considered an aberration of wound healing process. It is believed to be the confused scar that does not know when to stop growing. Pressure therapy using clips or splints is widely used for the treatment of keloids; however, it is often very difficult to control the amount and direction of pressure applied. Among the most common complications of this therapy is ulceration due to excessive pressure. A case of presurgical size reduction for a large ear keloid with a custom made pressure appliance is presented. This novel design of the appliance allows for better control over the amount and direction of the pressure applied on the scar tissue.

E-state modeling of corticosteroids binding affinity validation of model for small data set

Data for 31 steroids binding to the corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) were modeled using E-state molecular structure descriptors and a kappa shape index. Both E-state and hydrogen E-state descriptors appear in the model in atom-level and atom-type descriptors. A four-variable model is obtained that is statistically satisfactory: r (2) = 0.81, s = 0.51; r (2)(press) = 0.72; s(press) = 0.62. Structure interpretation is given for each variable in the model. A leave-group-out (LGO) approach to model-validation is presented in which each observation is removed from the data set three times in random groups of 20% of the whole data set. The average of the resulting predicted values constitutes consensus predictions for these data for which r (2)(LOO) = 0.70. These collective results support the claim that the E-state model may be useful for prediction of pK binding values for new compounds.