الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 176 |  |  |
| | | from | 176 | | |
Abstract
Background: Psoriasis is a chronic disease characterized by abnormal epidermal proliferation, inflammation and angiogenesis.
It has been reported that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is overexpressed in lesional psoriatic skin patients.
VEGF is a major regulator of physiological and pathological angiogenesis, causing aberrant angiogenesis and vascular leakage in the upper dermis. Also it may contribute to keratinocyte proliferation and epidermal barrier homeostasis in psoriasis.
Recently, VEGFRs, including VEGFR-1, VEGFR-2 and VEGFR-3 were found to be expressed in normal human epidermis and associated with proliferation and migration of keratinocytes.
Aim of the work: The aim of this thesis is to study the expression patterns and relationship of VEGFR-3 in psoriasis compared to its expression patterns in control and its relation to disease severity.
Patients and Methods: This study was carried out on 40 subjects selected from the attendants of outpatient clinic, in the Departement of Dermatology, Andrology and STDs, Faculty of Medicine,Fayoum University, between the periods of January 2014 to May 2015. They were divided into psoriasis group: included 20 patients with psoriasis vulgaris of various degrees of severity according to Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) score, control group: included 20 healthy volunteers.
- Two Punch biopsy specimens were taken from all patients; lesional and non lesional.
- Each skin biopsy was examined for vascularity changes in the dermis.
- Each skin biopsy was used for RNA extraction and RT-PCR of VEGFR-3mRNA.
Results: There was a statistically significant difference with p-value <0.05 between groups as regards to VEGFR3-PCR level in lesional and non-lesional areas with high mean among cases of psoriasis.
Conclusion: VEGFR3 could be an important factor in the pathogenesis of psoriasis due to its effect on skin vascularity on both lesional and non lesional skin of psoriatic patients.
Also this study recommends that the further needs to perform future studies to check for using different medications affecting that receptor (VEGFR3) may or may not lead to improvement in the disease
Key words: Psoriasis, Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-3 (VEGFR3).