Arantxa Ortiz

Background: Pulsed dye laser is the gold standard for treatment of port-wine stain birthmarks but multiple treatments are required and complete resolution is often not achieved. Posttreatment vessel recurrence is thought to be a factor that limits efficacy of PDL treatment of PWS. Imiquimod 5% cream is an immunomodulator with antiangiogenic effects. Objective: We sought to determine if application of imiquimod 5% cream after PDL improves treatment outcome. Methods: Healthy individuals with PWS were treated with PDL and then randomized to apply posttreatment placebo or imiquimod 5% cream for 8 weeks. Chromameter measurements for 57 PWS sites were taken at baseline and compared with measurements taken 8 weeks posttreatment. The Δa and ΔE were measured to quantify treatment outcome. Results: Two patients developed minor skin irritation. Other adverse effects were not noted. Average a was 0.43 for PDL + placebo sites and 1.27 for PDL + imiquimod sites indicating a greater reduction in erythema with imiquimod. Average E was 2.59 for PDL + placebo and 4.08 for PDL + imiquimod, again indicating a greater color improvement with imiquimod. Limitations: Effects were evaluated after a single treatment and duration of effect is unknown. Conclusion: Combined selective photothermolysis and antiangiogenic therapy may enhance PWS treatment efficacy. © 2011 by the American Academy of Dermatology, Inc.

Background: Cellulite is a common, unwanted condition, which is challenging to treat. Objectives: The objective of this investigation was to evaluate safety and effectiveness of a long-pulsed 1064 Nd:YAG laser as a method for improvement in cellulite appearance and to evaluate parameter selection. Materials and methods: Twenty-two female subjects with posterior leg cellulite were randomly assigned to treatment of left or right thigh with higher energy treatment with cryogen spray cooling or lower energy treatment with no CSC. Subjects received three treatments at 4 weeks intervals. Digital photographs and circumference measurements were taken pre-treatment and up to 6 months post-treatment. Results: Nineteen subjects completed three treatments and 16 subjects completed 6-month follow-up. Circumference measurements pre- and post-treatment were not significantly different. Blinded evaluators noted mild improvement in three of seven subjects in high energy group and moderate improvement in two of nine subjects in low energy group. Conclusion: Multiple passes with a long-pulsed 1064 Nd:YAG achieved mild or moderate improvement in some subjects as rated by blinded evaluators. © 2012 Informa UK, Ltd.

This paper presents a method for selecting Regions of Interest in brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging for diagnostic purposes, using statistical learning and vector quantization techniques. The proposed method models the distribution of GM and WM tissues grouping the voxels belonging to each tissue in ROIs associated to a specific neurological disorder. Tissue distribution of normal and abnormal images is modelled by a Self-Organizing map, generating a set of representative prototypes, and the receptive field of each SOM prototype defines a ROI. Moreover, the proposed method computes the relative importance of each ROI by means of its discriminative power. The devised method has been assessed using 818 images from the Alzheimer's disease Neuroimaging Initiative which were previously segmented through Statistical Parametric Mapping. The proposed algorithm was used over these images to parcel ROIs associated to the Alzheimer's Disease. Additionally, this method can be used to extract a reduced set of discriminative features for classification, since it compresses discriminative information contained in the brain. Voxels marked by ROIs which were computed using the proposed method, yield classification results up to 90% of accuracy for controls and Alzheimer's disease patients, and 84% of accuracy for Mild Cognitive Impairment and AD patients.