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Thalidomide improves clinical symptoms of primary cutaneous amyloidosis: report of familiar and sporadic cases
Author(s) -
An Qian,
Zhang Li,
Zheng Song,
Lin Junping,
Hong Yuxiao,
Chen HongDuo,
Gao XingHua
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
dermatologic therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.595
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1529-8019
pISSN - 1396-0296
DOI - 10.1111/j.1529-8019.2013.01548.x
Subject(s) - medicine , thalidomide , itching , amyloidosis , edema , surgery , dermatology , clinical trial , multiple myeloma
Primary cutaneous amyloidosis ( PCA ), either familial or sporadic, poses a therapeutic challenge. We conducted an open trial using thalidomide to treat three cases of familial and three cases of sporadic PCA , at initial dose of 100 mg/day. Dosage adjustment was made according to improvement of symptoms or patient's own choice. All except one sporadic case experienced moderate to significant relief on the symptoms of itching, over an observational period of 8 weeks by visual analog score (from 8.08 ± 0.88 to 1.60 ± 0.68, on average) as well as clinical amelioration of symptoms. Side effects included fatigue, drowsiness, numbness, and facial and leg edema in some of the patients. From the present observation, it seems that thalidomide is a promising drug to treat PCA .