A report from the 68th annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (March 5-9, 2010 - Miami, Florida, USA).
Although a study using eye-tracking technology to assess the focus of attention when evaluating the beauty of a face demonstrated a marked attentional preference for the eye area (Cula, G.O. et al., Abst P1636), the skin at large is a main factor that reveals information about a person to everyone else with whom he or she comes into contact. Be it because of disease or because of aging, improving the appearance of the skin is as important as relieving pain, itch or other troublesome symptoms caused by skin diseases. Moreover, this can be much more important in a place like South Miami Beach, where bare skin is revealed on much more than just the face ... at least under normal circumstances, when the weather is not as surprisingly chilly as it was in March 2010 during the AAD annual meeting However, if beauty is very important for many people, health is important for everybody, and important news was also discussed on treatments for common and less common cutaneous diseases, ranging from psoriasis, acne and atopic dermatitis to a broad range of blistering, papulosquamous and granulomatous diseases. These are among the most important issues reviewed in the following report, which in combination with expert insight interviews freely accessible from the Access Dermatology website and the full abstracts from the meeting, available for download from the AAD website, will hopefully improve dermatologists' approach to treating skin diseases through use of the most novel therapies. Treatment is important, but so is prevention, and in that sense an important issue discussed during the meeting, which was nicely covered in an interview with Dr. Darrell S. Riegel from the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at the New York University School of Medicine, was that protecting the skin from sunlight and artificial tanning beds is essential for preventing malignancies such as melanoma, while not jeopardizing adequate availability of active vitamin D. A fitting message is: "It's cold, but even if it wasn't, cover your skin... even in Miami".
Rabasseda
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Medical Department, Thomson Reuters, Barcelona, Spain. xavier.rabasseda@thomsonreuters.com
D000152:Acne Vulgaris / Q000188:drug therapy; D001504:Beauty; D003876:Dermatitis, Atopic / Q000188:drug therapy; D003880:Dermatology; D005145:Face; D005431:Florida; D006801:Humans; D006967:Hypersensitivity / Q000188:drug therapy; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000188:drug therapy; D012393:Rosacea / Q000188:drug therapy; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D012955:Societies, Medical