Lesions induced by trauma in pemphigoid

Abstract

Three patients were described with pemphigoid (2 with typical adult type and 1 with juvenile pemphigoid) in whom bullous lesions had clearly been induced by the trauma of scratching. In 2 patients this phenomenon occurred during the 1st few weeks of systemic corticosteroid treatment at a time when other lesions were resolving or had completely healed. Although lesions induced by trauma are not usually of great clinical importance, epidermolysis bullosa acquisita may represent a variant of pemphigoid in which trauma-induced lesions predominate. Induction of pemphigoid lesions by trauma may prove a useful method of studying early immunopathological events.