INTRODUCTION Paraneoplastic pemphigus is an autoimmune disease associated with an underlying tumor. Several cases have been reported as unusual pemphigus vulgaris, erythema multiforme, or paraneoplastic bullous disease, but the incidence of the condition is unknown. Response to treatment is generally poor, with significant morbidity and mortality. This condition is clinically characterized by s...

OBJECTIVE Pemphigus is an acquired autoimmune blistering skin diseases, of which pemphigus vulgaris (PV) and pemphigus foliaceus (PF) are two major subtypes. A novel commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) against Dsg1 and Dsg3 has been well established for diagnosis and prediction of disease activity in PF and PV. At present, the benefit of anti-Dsg 1 and anti-Dsg 3 IgG by ELISA i...

BACKGROUND There are no reported epidemiological data regarding autoimmune pemphigus in the Afro-Caribbean population. OBJECTIVES To present the epidemiology of autoimmune pemphigus on the island of Guadeloupe (French West Indies, 400,736 inhabitants, mostly black Caribbean of African European descent). MATERIALS AND METHODS Five-year prospective study. Inclusion of the incident cases when ...

Dermatologic disorders frequently parallel with oral involvement which dental practitioners should be familiar with. In continuation with part II, the immunofluorescence patterns in the intraepidermal pemphigus group and its variants: Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) and paraneoplastic pemphigus (PNP) are dealt in this section. Also, a brief note is added on other mucocutaneous disorders showing similar...

Background: Pemphigus is a serious blistering disease with considerable mortality, which heavily burdens on health care system because of the long time hospitalization. It is rare in north America but is considered as the most common immunobullous disease in eastern countries such as Malaysia and China. Objective: The purpose of this study was to define the epidemiologic features of pemph...

INTRODUCTION Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is a chronic, autoimmune, vesiculobullous disease. As a result of the relative rarity of PV, published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are limited, which makes it difficult to evaluate the efficacy of different treatment regimens in this disease. This also precludes conduct of a meta-analysis. METHODS English-language publications describing treatment ...

A variety of clinical and histological presentations can accompany the evolution of malignant melanoma. Unusual cytological variants of malignant melanoma include balloon cell, signet ring cell, myxoid and other metaplastic changes. With the exception of a case of pemphigus-like changes associated with malignant melanoma in paraneoplastic pemphigus, acantholysis is not a common histopathologica...

The prototypic bullous skin diseases, pemphigus vulgaris, pemphigus foliaceus, and bullous pemphigoid, are characterized by the blister formation in the skin and/or oral mucosa in combination with circulating and deposited autoantibodies reactive with (hemi)desmosomes. Koch's postulates, adapted for autoimmune diseases, were applied on these skin diseases. It appears that all adapted Koch's pos...

BACKGROUND Drug-specific CD8+ TH1 lymphocytes have been found in the peripheral blood and involved skin of patients with drug-induced bullous exanthems. OBJECTIVES To determine whether the interferon-gamma release test can identify culprit drugs in pemphigus patients. METHODS Clinical and laboratory workup for pemphigus was performed in 14 pemphigus vulgaris patients who had been exposed to...

Sir, Cilazapril is a new angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) which, like other ACEIs, is a non-thiol molecule, containing an active amide group. Since the early 1990s an increasing number of case reports have been published pointing to the role of this family of drugs in inducing or triggering pemphigus (1). In 1992, the ACEI Enalapril was found to be the most powerful acantholytic d...