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Show New Drug Holds Promise of Curing Tough Skin Disease Injecting the corticosteroid drug, aristocorot triamcinolene, directly into lesions of stubborn skin diseases holds promise of more effective control of those disorders. This is the consensus of four investngtaions into this method of treatment reported in medical journals the past year. In three studies investigators reported success by injecting the drug into or under lesions of psoriasis, one of the most common com-mon and unyielding skin ailments. ail-ments. Hypodermic syringes are used. In the other study, tattooing tattoo-ing equipment was used to inject the drug directly into a huge sore of lichen amyloidosis. The spread of this rare skin disease was controlled, and the extreme itching that accompanies it was abated. Interest in this way of administering admin-istering artistocort was aroused two years ago when Dr. Walter B. Shelley of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and Hospital reported that 12 of 21 psoriasis patients responded respond-ed well to topical injections of aristocort. His results stimulated Dr. Harvey J. Cohen and Dr. Rudolf Baer of the Department of Dermatology of the New York University Post Graduate Medical Medi-cal School to compare the effectiveness effec-tiveness against psoriasis of cortisone cor-tisone compounds administered intralesionally. Aristocort proved the most effective ef-fective of three steroid drugs in reducing the areas of the lesions of 20 to 25 patients, most of whom had suffered from psoriasis psori-asis for years. It was also the most effective by mouth, proving helpful by the oral route for 85 per cent of the patients who had done well on local injections. "The persistent clearing (up to over 20 days) of patches after intralcsional injections of triamcinolene triam-cinolene in these skin tests suggests sug-gests that intralcsional injections of persistent localized areas of psoriasis may be a worthwhile therapeutic procedure," they reported. |