Clinical Questions Flashcards
A women presents with well defined red plaques, with a silvery scale on her elbows and knees.
Plaque psoriasis
What nail signs are you looking for in a patient who presents with symptoms suspicious of psoriasis?
Pitting and onchylyis (separation from the nail bed)
What systemic symptom is is important to ask about in psoriasis patents?
Joint pain
A man presents with clear demarcated pink lesions on his groin and perinanal region. The rash is aggravated by sweat and friction.
Flexural psoriasis
A teenage girl come in complaint of many small lesions on her back and chest. On questioning she reveals she had a soar throat 2 weeks ago.
Guttate psoriasis
A man complains of a psoriatic like lesion on top of a surgical scar. What is this phenomenon called?
Koebner phenomenon
What would be appropriate first line therapies for a patient presenting with psoriasis?
Emolliants Vitamin D analogue (calcitriol) Topical corticosteroids Coal tar preparations Dithranol
Describe how calcitriol works
A vitamin D analogue which inhibits cell proliferation and promotes keratincyte differentiation.
In a patient which psoriasis what do you expect a skin biopsy to show?
Epidermal acanthosis and parakeratosis (increased skin turnover)
Absence of the granular layer
What is hyperkeratosis?
Increased thickness of the keratin layer
What is parakeratosis?
Persistence of nuclei in the keratin layer
What is acanthosis?
Increases thickness of the epidermis
What is papillomatosis
Irregular epithelial thickening
What is spongiosis?
Oedema between keratinocytes
What is meant by an inflammatory cell infiltrate?
Acute or chronic lymphocytes and/or neutrophils.
A 40 year old man with psoriasis has just stopped a 2 week course of prednisolone for his asthma. What life threatening complication is he at risk of?
Erythroderma. (An inflammatory dermatitis over 90% of the skin) which can be fatal
A child presents with a weeping, crusty, golden lesion beside her mouth. Her mum reveals that 4 other children in her nursery have recently had the same appearance.
Impetigo
What is the most common causative organism for impetigo?
Staph aureus
How would you treat a child with staph aureus impetigo?
Oral flucloxacillin 500mg 4x daily for 7 - 10 days
How would you treat a child with a beta haemolytic streptococci impetigo?
Oral phenoxypenicillin 500mg 4 times daily
What advice would you give to the parent of a child with impetigo?
Good personal hygiene (e.g. avoid towel sharing)
Avoid school for 1 week
What bacteria is responsible for staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome?
Staph aureas
What bacteria usually causes cellulitis?
Beta haemolytic streptococci
How would you treat a cellulitis?
Phenoxymethylpenicilllin and flucloxacillin 500mg 4 x daily.
A child present with a circular lesion on his chest which is red around the outside but appears to be healed in the middle.
Tinea corporis
How would you treat a child with two small ringworm lesions?
Clotrimazole cream
A lady comes in complaining of a redness under her breasts. You swap for a culture, what do you expect to find.
Candida (yeast infection)
How do you treat a candida skin infection?
Clotrimazole cream
Oral fluconazole
A man comes in with an intensely itchy rash all over his body, particularly in his finger ends and wrist. All his family have the same symptoms.
Scabies
How would you treat scabies?
Malathion lotion applied overnight to whole body and washed off the next day. Benzyl benzoate (avoid in children)
How do you treat head lice?
Malathion
What type of reaction is a contact allergic dermatitis?
Delayed type (type 4)
What is the principle histological finding in dermatitis?
Spongiotic dermatitis
In a child with atopic excema, which serum antibody do you expect to be raised?
IgE
1 year old child comes into your clinic with an eryhthamtous rash on her face and the back of her arm which appears to be very itchy. Her mum suffers from asthma.
Atopic eczema
Mutations in the coding of which protein appear often in eczema?
Fillagrin protein
Which parts of the skin does atopic eczema affect?
The epidermis and the dermis
What can happen to your skin in the long term as a result of scratching?
Lichenification of he skin
What would you prescribe for a 2 year old child with moderate eczema?
Emolliants
1% Hydrocortisone cream
Soap substitutes
A mother complains that her 5 year old daughter, who has severe eczema, is not sleeping at night due to constant itching. What treatments would you try?
Medicated bandages/wet wraps
Sedative anti histamines
A 15 year old girl had had severe eczema since she was 2. She is on emollients and topical steroids without relief and is tired of using creams. What other therapy could you try?
A course of PUVA and UVB
What oral medications would you consider using in a severe unresponsive eczema patient?
A short course of prednisolone or ciclosporin.
How would you treat infected eczema?
Oral flucloxacilin for 7 - 10 days.
A man comes in with a red itchy rash stretching from his umbilicus to his underpants. He has no history of excema or asthma
Allergic contact dermatitis to nickel
A women comes in with well demarcated, scaly patches that are itchy. Sometimes they are terrible and sometimes they do not bother her.
Discoid eczema
Describe the immunopatholgy of allergic contact dermatitis.
Langerhans cells in the epidermis process the antigen on first exposure, after which presented to T helper cells in the dermis. These then migrate to the lymph nodes and on next exposure the sensitised T cells proliferate and cause a dermatitis
How would you test for a suspected contact allergic dermatitis
Patch testing
What advice would you give to someone suffering from a contact allergic dermatitis. What treatment could you prescribe?
Avoid allergen
Corticosteroids (local or systemic)
Oral antihistamines
A baby presents to your cline with a rash on the nappy area but not in the skin flexures.
Irritant contact dermatitis to urine
A women who works as a hairdresser come is with a painful redness and dryness on her hands.
Irritant contact dermatitis
How would you treat an irritant contact dermatitis?
Avoidance
Topical steroid
A man comes in complaint on a brownish, itchy each over his varicose veins. What treatments would you recommend?
Emolliants and topical steroid
Compression bandage to treat the underlying problem