Ichthyosis Essay

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The term, “Ichthyosis”, is a skin disorder generally causing dry, scaly skin. It is affecting around 1 in 250 people and is typically an autosomal dominant inherited disease; although, a rare non-heritable version called “acquired ichthyosis” exists to this day in modern age. The condition is not life-threatening, however, the impact on the patient, if it is a mild case, is commonly regulated to mild itching and the social impression of having skin with an unusual appearance will affect those surrounding the person tremendously. People afflicted with mild cases acquire symptoms which comprises scaly patches on the shins, fine white scales on the forearms and upper arms, and rough palms. These severe cases involve the “build-up” of scales everywhere. Furthermore, when the “build-up” of scales are depraved, the person with a severe case suffers from "prickly itch" when he or she needs to sweat but cannot because of the scales. Various contemporary treatments are available to "exfoliate" the scales. These include lotions that contain alpha-hydroxy acids.
There are numerous types of inherited ichthyosis, in which most involve only the skin – therefore, some regions of the skin may be more severely affected than the other parts of the body. Some types of ichthyosis involve internal organs as well as the skin and are referred to as syndromic types of ichthyosis – however, there is an increase within the tendency to categorize inherited ichythyosis from the gene that caused it. They are usually categorized by clinical appearance. The types are: ichthyosis vulgaris, which is characterized by mild skin scaling and dryness and is a recessive X-linked ichthyosis, epidermolytic ichthyosis or epidermolytic hyperkeratisis, which is characteriz...

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... or sources of the disorder, as well as coming up with more effective treatments. Although, the genes that are accountable for the majority of ichthyosis situations have been characterized; there are a select number of people who have the disease and do not have a genetic alteration in one of their known DNA strands. For that reason, investigators will continue to search for genes involved in the disease. They, additionally, are searching for countless methods in order to influence the affected genes to prevent the ailment. Other scientists are occupied by developing pharmaceutical conducts, containing original moisturizers or provisions in which softens the outer layer of skin and cause it to retain in more humidity than it would usually have. An example of this would be a new production of topical “keratolytics” in which comforts or relaxes the keratin in the nail.

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