Benefit of high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone as induction therapy for giant cell arteritis: Comment on the article by Mazlumzadeh et al

✍ Scribed by Kayvan Arashvand

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 33 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.22575

✦ Synopsis

consequences of a variety of compounds that are used may be quite significant (1-5). As noted by Pollard and Hultman, these products are available and used worldwide, but the extent to which they are currently used, or have previously been used, by different groups (in the US and in other countries) is not known. The prevalence of use, the actual content of specific products that are or were used, and the potential health effects of these products are critical questions that should be addressed.

We note, however, that whatever the association is between skin-lightening creams and lupus, the use of these products is unlikely to confound the association between silica and lupus we observed in our study. For use of skin-lightening creams to be a confounding factor, it would need to be associated with both lupus and occupations involving silica exposure, which seems unlikely. Patients and control individuals were matched for ethnicity and came from the same socioeconomic background, which further makes a differential exposure to skin-lightening creams improbable. We did not ask about application of skin-lightening creams; however, our questionnaire assessed regular use of dyes, relaxers, or curl solutions in individuals working as beauticians. Dyes, relaxers, or curl solutions were used with similar frequency by patients with lupus and matched control individuals in this population.