title: Responses To Thermal Stresses in Psoriasis of Hand.
abstract: Fifteen subjects having psoriasis on the hand, comprising both sexes, between 22 and 56 years in age and suffering for durations varying from 10 months to 20 years each with a sex and age niatched control were studied. A thermistor thermometer measured the skin temperature in ambient condition at the finger tip and at selected sites on the dorsa of hands and fingers, both at lesion site and lesion-free adjacent ones. In all cases except one, the thermistor readings were significantly lower (p ) in the psoriatic lesions than in the uninvolved adjacent skin. The hands were next subjected to thermal stresses: first by immersion in an ice-water bath at O'C (cold challenge) and later in a hot water bath at 450C (heat challenge) each for a period of 60 seconds. Immediately after each stress period,ithe fingertip temperatures were recorded, in psoriatic subjects, the finger-tip temperature dropped on cold challenge and the amount of drop expressed as percentage of the basal temperature was significantly less (p ) than the corresponding value for the control. There was no significant difference (p 0.05) in the respo se to the heat challenge between psoriat c and normal subjects. It appears that there is some fault in the local vasomotor tone in subjects with hand psoriasis.
authors.forename: Soma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mukherjee
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Haldar