News Releases

Why do humans have hair on our arms and legs but not on the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet? It’s a fundamental question in human evolution that researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania say they’ve found clues to in a new study.

As many as 16.5 million adults in America suffer from a skin disease known as atopic dermatitis, an inflammatory disease that results in red, itchy skin.

Contrary to the advice most cancer patients receive when they go through radiation treatment, topical skin treatments, unless applied very heavily, do not increase the radiation dose to the skin and can be used in moderation before daily radiation treatments.

A compound secreted in the bloodstream could be the key factor that causes wounds in older people to heal with less scarring than in younger people. The compound is called stromal cell-derived-factor-1 (SDF1), and researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania showed that blocking it could influence scar formation and tissue regeneration in mouse and human skin, potentially providing a path to scar-less wound healing in humans.

The stigma associated with the autoimmune disease psoriasis may lead people to avoid patients who show signs of the condition, including not wanting to date, shake hands, or have people in their homes if they suffer from the disease. New multidisciplinary research involving both psychologists and dermatologists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is the first to examine how common this stigma may be among the general population of the United States as well as among medical students.

Cancer patients receiving anti-PD-1 therapies who develop lesions, eczema, psoriasis, or other forms of auto-immune diseases affecting the skin may experience those adverse reactions on a delay – sometimes even after treatment has concluded.

Penn study finds evidence that both treatments are similarly effective in practice

Despite the fact that their disease may be more severe, a new study shows minorities are less likely than white Americans to see a doctor for psoriasis treatment. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that black, Asian, and other non-Hispanic minorities are about 40 percent less likely to see a dermatologist for psoriasis than whites.