Investigations during the past year may aid in both the understanding and treatment of two major skin problems: psoriasis and acne.
Psoriasis and Dialysis
The serendipitous observation1 that psoriasis cleared in patients treated with dialysis for end-stage renal disease has only recently begun to receive attention. Patients with psoriasis, with and without impaired renal function, who were treated with either hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis have also had improvement according to other, independent studies from Missouri,2 Ohio,3 Minnesota,4 and India.5 Although not all patients with psoriasis respond to dialysis, when they do, a clinical response is usually noted within four weeks of the beginning of treatment; often, complete remission is observed at eight weeks. Some of these remissions have lasted from six to 18 months.6 However, pustular psoriasis does not appear to respond to dialysis.2 Preliminary information from two patients suggests that dialysis may