Tacalcitol ointment once daily was demonstrated to be efficacious, safe and well tolerated in the long-term control of plaque psoriasis in patients with up to 20% body surface involvement.

As part of the ongoing project, Project Halo, our goal is to build a system capable of answering questions posed by novice users to a formal knowledge base. In our current context, the knowledge base covers selected topics in physics, chemistry, and biology, and our question set consists of AP (advanced high-school) level examination questions. The task is challenging because the questions are linguistically complex and are often incomplete (assume unstated knowledge), and because the users do not have prior knowledge of the system's contents. Our solution involves two parts: a controlled language interface, in which users reformulate the original natural language questions in a simplified version of English, and a novel problem solver that can elaborate initially inadequate logical interpretations of a question by selecting relevant pieces of knowledge in the knowledge base. An evaluation of the work in 2006 showed that this approach is feasible and that complex, multisentence questions can be posed and answered, thus illustrating novel ways of dealing with the knowledge capture impedance between users and a formal knowledge base, while also revealing challenges that still remain.

T-cell mediated inflammation plays an important role in the aetiology of psoriasis. We describe a case of severe recalcitrant psoriasis responding well to combined cyclosporin and basiliximab (Simulect(R) Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd), an interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R; CD25) chimeric monoclonal antibody.

As an alternative to attending a conventional dermatology clinic, patients had a high-resolution conventional photographic image taken by a professional medical photographer. The photographic images were viewed by a dermatologist together with referral details from the general practitioner and any other relevant information from the patient's notes. From the images, a dermatological diagnosis was derived and a management plan for each patient instituted. After treatment, histological assessment of the tumours allowed diagnostic accuracy to be determined. The preliminary diagnostic accuracy (71%) was greater than that of the referring general practitioners (49%). However, when the diagnostic ability of the method to detect the nature of malignant lesions was examined, telemedicine was able to detect malignancies in 94% of cases compared with only 70% detected by general practitioners. The results of the present study indicate that teledermatology is achievable using a low-technology, low-cost approach.