• Online Features  This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Milton R. Okun, MD
Boston

Arch Dermatol. 1972;106(3):422-423.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

In my study,¹ dopa-positive dendritic cells in the dermis in lichen planus were easily distinguished from dopa-negative dermal cells containing preformed melanin ("melanophages"). The implication by Black and Wilson-Jones in the ARCHIVES (105:81, 1972) that our identification of these dopa-positive cells was erroneous and based on difficulty in distinguishing dopa melanin from preformed melanin is incorrect and clearly contradicted by Fig 5 of my study.¹ Even the most heavily melanized cells cannot be confused with the strongly dopa-positive cells containing homogenous black reaction-product, which we demonstrated. Some "melanophages" were dopa-negative, and others showed a range of dopa-positivity, including the strongly dopa-positive cells cited. The Figure illustrates dopa-positive dermal cells in the cryostat section of the lesion of lichen planus used to illustrate our 1965 article. The contrast between dopa-melanin and preformed melanin depicted is evident.

The use of the term "melanophage" without qualification and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Delicious    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?