title: Thalidomide improves clinical symptoms of primary cutaneous amyloidosis: report of familiar and sporadic cases.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, No. 1 Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: An
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Song
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Junping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Yuxiao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Hong-Duo
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xing-Hua
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000686:Amyloidosis / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000075363:Immunoglobulin Light-chain Amyloidosis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*; D013792:Thalidomide / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D013792:Thalidomide