The purpose of this book is to substantiate the need for dermatology to transition from a descriptive-morphological paradigm to a phenotypic one, in which the diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases are grounded in the objective analysis of cellular phenotypes and their subpopulation interactions.
This book seeks to establish the theoretical, methodological, and practical foundation of a new discipline—phenotypic dermatology—which integrates cytology, immunology, and conceptual analysis to create a precise, reproducible, and predictive framework for the dermatologist’s decision-making in the diagnosis and treatment of immune-mediated skin diseases.
Phenotypic dermatology is a new scientific paradigm in which the diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases rely not on visual signs but on objective characteristics of cellular phenotypes and their interactions.
Unlike classical dermatology—based on the description of morphological elements—phenotypic dermatology views the skin as a dynamic system of cellular subpopulations and its immune microenvironment.
Its methodological basis is flow cytometry and the skin cytoimmunogram developed by the author—a method for obtaining and analyzing viable cellular suspensions that allows the determination of subpopulation composition, phenotypic profiles, and functional states of skin cells.
This approach enables a shift from subjective diagnosis to precision (accurate and measurable) evaluation of skin conditions, where the fundamental “unit of measurement” becomes the cell phenotype, rather than the clinical symptom.
Phenotypic dermatology integrates concepts from cell biology, immunology, and systems analysis, establishing the foundation for personalized therapy. It opens the way to predicting disease trajectories, selecting optimal treatment strategies, and monitoring therapeutic effectiveness. In doing so, the theory forms the basis for a new, scientifically grounded and measurable dermatology—a dermatology of phenotypes.
