Presenting Author UT Southwestern Texas Medical Center
The term “skin of color” identifies individuals of racial groups with skin darker than Caucasians, such as Asians, Africans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders. Patients with skin of color often have distinctive cutaneous and hair characteristics, disorders and reaction patterns. There are skin disorders that disproportionately affect skin of color patients, such as keloids, hidradenitis suppurativa, and central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia – these conditions are underresearched and the underlying causes remain poorly understood. Recent progress in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these diseases has begun to emerge. In this talk, I will discuss these diseases with an emphasis on keloids; the racial differences in their epidemiology and the recent progress in the genetic and molecular understanding of these conditions.
