Urticarial Vasculitis

Abstract

To the Editor: Soter described 16 patients with necrotizing vasculitis who had a symptom complex consisting of arthralgia, abdominal pain and (rarely) glomerulonephritis, as well as chronic urticaria.¹ Although this combination indicates that vasculitis may underlie urticaria, it does not indicate how often common "garden-variety" chronic urticaria has vasculitis as its basis. Also, how many patients with this symptom complex do not have vasculitis when biopsied, and how often does this syndrome occur in ordinary chronic urticaria?We examined 21 consecutive patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria. Biopsy of the urticarial lesions showed vasculitis in 10 and 11 with perivascular . . .