Erik Andersen

Plasmapheresis in the treatment of psoriasis: A controlled clinical study

Six patients with long-standing, moderately active plaque/nummular psoriasis were treated with either plasmapheresis or sham-plasmapheresis once weekly for 7 weeks in a double-blind controlled trial. No difference was found between active treatment and placebo. The marginal effect, which might be demonstrated by a larger study, is too small to justify this expensive modality of treatment.

Pre-Morbid Factors in Hodgkin's Disease III.

In young adults with Hodgkins disease, cell mediated immunity (CMI) was evaluated retrospectively from their health records. The register of records from the school health service of the Copenhagen Council was scrutinized in order to find the records of those with HD born between 1930 and 1950 in whom the disease had been diagnosed between 1943 and 1975. Whenever possible, three controls were selected from the register for each case; they were comparable in respect of sex, year and month of birth and socio-economic background. The material consisted of 63 cases and 182 controls. Information regarding BCG-vaccinations, tuberculin skin-tests, the frequency of tuberculosis, bacterial and viral diseases, and of tonsilectomy, adenoidectomy and appendectomy was obtained from the school health records. 2 HD patients have had tuberculosis versus none in the control group. Complications to or prolonged course of viral diseases were reported neither in HD patients nor in controls. No significant differences were found in the frequency of BCG-vaccination, tuberculin reactivity, viral and bacterial diseases, adenoidectomy, tonsilectomy and appendectomy. Therefore our findings do not support the concept of a pre-morbid CMI deficiency state in HD.