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Objective The goals of this study were to evaluate the mean blood prolactin levels between healthy and psoriatic patients and to ascertain the prevalence of psoriasis in patients presenting to a teaching hospital in Punjab. Methods This study involved 153 patients of both genders aged between 18-70 years who presented at outpatient department of Dermatology, Mayo Hospital Lahore. 153 patients of both genders aged between 18-70 years were evaluated for psoriasis which was diagnosed clinically by the presence of red inflamed, sharply demarcated, indurated plaques, with silvery white scales over extensor surfaces and scalp for =6 months. 5ml of venous blood was sampled through venipuncture and was sent for serum prolactin level estimation. Mean serum prolactin level was compared between patients with and without psoriasis. A written informed consent was taken from each patient. Results The patients were 40.11±4.9 years old on average. The majority of the patients (n=103, 67.3%) were in the 18-44 age range. Male to female ratio was 2:1, with 102 (66.7%) men and 51 (33.3%) women among the patients. These individuals serum prolactin levels ranged from 5.6ng/ml to 15.9ng/ml, with an average of 8.9±2.3ng/ml. Six individuals (3.9%) had psoriasis, which was identified. The prevalence of psoriasis did not differ statistically significantly by gender (pvalue= 1.000) or by age (p-value=0.972). Patients with psoriasis had considerably higher mean serum prolactin levels than those without psoriasis (14.80±1.05 vs. 8.68±1.97 ng/ml; p-value 0.001). Patients with and without psoriasis were divided into several subgroups based on patient's age, with similar substantial differences in mean serum prolactin level being identified. Conclusion In the present study, 3.9% of patients presenting in dermatology outpatient department had psoriasis and these patients had significantly higher mean serum prolactin level compared to those without psoriasis which might be a potential therapeutic target and necessitates further studies in this regard to establish cause-effect relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The objective of the study was to compare the frequency of outcome of fractional carbon dioxide (CO2) laser plus topical hyaluronic acid serum versus fractional CO2 laser alone in the treatment of post-acne scars. Methods 300 patients of both genders 18 to 40 years who presented with post-acne scars were enrolled. One side of patient's face was randomly allocated to treatment Group-A which received combination therapy of topical hyaluronic acid and fractional CO2 laser while the other side of face was allocated to treatment Group-B which was treated with fractional CO2 laser alone. Percent reduction in Goodman and Baron quantitative grading score from baseline was determined after 3 months of treatment and was graded as excellent, significant, moderate and slight improvement and was compared between the groups. Results In this study, the mean age of the patients was 23.2±4.7 years. There were 90 (30.0%) male and 210 (70.0%) female patients with a male to female ratio of 1:2.3. Both the groups were comparable in terms of mean Goodman and Baron quantitative grading score at baseline (54.68±14.30 vs. 53.66±14.83; p-value=0.391). The mean score at follow-up was significantly lower in patients receiving combination therapy as compared to fractional CO2 laser alone (22.66±12.46 vs. 24.85±13.85; p-value=0.042). The frequency of excellent (17.0% vs. 14.3%) and significant (53.3% vs. 44.0%) improvement was significant higher in patients receiving combination therapy consisting of fractional CO2 laser plus topical hyaluronic acid as compared to fractional CO2 laser alone. Conclusion Combining topical hyaluronic acid with fractional CO2 laser resulted in significantly better outcome as compared to conventional practice of fractional CO2 laser alone in patients with post-acne scars which advocates preferred use of this novel combination therapy in the management of such patients in future practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]